Almost every restaurant and food service operator in the country shares a similar monthly routine—the completion of a product inventory and the subsequent generation of a food cost percentage.  This process not only enables the creation of a restaurant profit and loss statement that illustrates the financial health of the business, but can also uncover operational performance issues.  Unfortunately, not as common among restaurant operators is the generation of a theoretical food cost that can supplement the benefit of an actual food cost percentage by providing a food cost target or baseline.  The following spreadsheet will help you quickly determine your ideal food cost.