How Much Do Restaurants Make in a Day?

When you are at a busy restaurant, looking around at the frenzy of food, drinks, diners, and waitstaff all milling about, you may wonder about the math of a business model  like this. Sure, there are a lot of paying customers, but there are a lot of total expenses in a restaurant. So, you begin asking yourself - how much do restaurants make in a day?

Whether you’re dreaming big and want to know how much restaurant owners make or you are trying to figure out the math of your restaurant, knowing daily revenue is an important part of a restaurant's financial plan.

In this article, we will take a deep dive into the factors that impact how much a restaurant makes in a day and how that data can inform both daily and long-term decision-making.

Key Takeaways

• Average Restaurant Revenue: Restaurants make between $300 and $10,000 daily, depending on type and location. Fast food and high-end bistros lead in daily earnings.

• Factors Affecting Revenue: Location, menu pricing, customer traffic, and operational efficiency are the biggest determinants of daily revenue.

• Revenue Streams: Beyond food and beverages, additional streams like catering, merchandise, and event hosting boost income.

• Tracking Revenue: Use POS systems to track sales, calculate average checks, analyze menu performance, and identify trends.

• Restaurant Types: Revenue varies by type—fast food earns more on weekends, fine dining remains steady, and food trucks depend on events.

How Much Do Average Restaurants Make in a Day?

Based on exclusive Toast data from a survey of 43 new restaurateurs, the average monthly revenue for a new restaurant less than 12 months old is $111,860.70, equating to about $3,728.66 per day. Of course, there are many types of restaurants. Plus, different menu items, dining experiences, and price points contribute to a dramatic daily revenue range, from a few hundred dollars at a buffet to $10,000 or more at very busy, fast casual, quick service restaurants (like McDonald’s) or high-end, fine dining establishments .

As you can see, there’s a wide range of how much a restaurant may make in a day. Many factors impact daily revenue. Still, all restaurateurs should understand what a good day looks like for their business. As Joanne Chang, founder of Flour Bakery, says: “For the health of your business, to know and understand fully what's happening to every dollar coming in and every dollar going out, is really invaluable.”

How Much Do Different Restaurant Types Make Per Day on Average?

To provide a clearer understanding of how different types of full-service restaurants fare in terms of daily revenue, variability, and on-premise sales, we have compiled a table that categorizes various restaurant types based on these key financial metrics.

Explanation:

1. Fast Food: High daily revenue with significant variability by day, particularly higher on weekends. Most revenue is from on-premise sales due to the nature of fast food restaurants .

2. Casual Dining: Medium daily revenue, with variability higher on weekends. On-premise sales dominate, but takeout is also significant.

3. Fine Dining: Medium daily revenue but consistent throughout the week. High percentage of on-premise sales due to the experience fine dining restaurants provide.

4. Buffet: Medium daily revenue with high variability, especially on weekends and holidays. Predominantly on-premise sales.

5. Cafeteria: Low to medium revenue with peak hours during lunch. Majority of revenue comes from on-premise, dine-in sales.

6. Food Truck: Low daily revenue with high variability depending on location and events. Less percentage from on-premise as many sales are take-out. No food trucks provide on-premise dining rooms.

7. Coffee Shop: Medium daily revenue, with morning hours being the busiest. Significant percentage of revenue from on-premise sales.

8. Bakery: Low daily revenue with variability, busier in the mornings and on weekends. High percentage of on-premise sales.

9. Bar/Pub: Medium daily revenue with high variability, especially on weekends and evenings. Majority of revenue from on-premise sales.

10. High-End Bistro: High daily revenue with consistent earnings throughout the week. Very high percentage of revenue from on-premise sales due to the upscale dining experience.

This table provides a quick overview of the expected revenue patterns and the dynamics of different restaurant sizes and types.

Understanding Daily Revenue Streams in Restaurants

A restaurant’s daily revenue depends on myriad factors and could vary dramatically daily. From the type of restaurant, the location, menu prices, customer traffic, the day of the week, daily operating labor costs, food costs, and more - there’s a lot that goes into each day’s bottom line.

We should note that you may have more than one restaurant revenue stream, beyond just food and beverage sales. Catering services, merchandise, a jukebox, and party hosting services are all examples of additional revenue streams that can help raise your daily restaurant revenue.

Factors Influencing Daily Average Restaurant Revenue

Let’s explore some of the most significant factors that will impact a restaurant’s daily revenue.

Location

A restaurant’s location is possibly the biggest determining factor of a restaurant’s daily revenue. It makes sense, right? A restaurant in the middle of the block in a sleepy town won’t have the same foot traffic as an eatery across the street from a tourist attraction in a major city. That restaurant might struggle to compete even with a competitor who has a block corner location.

Restaurants in big cities, near popular tourist attractions, or around venues like stadiums or auditoriums are better situated to generate higher revenues than restaurants in quieter residential neighborhoods. Not only are there more people, but you can also price items higher in cities and around destinations where people have finite options to eat.

Menu Pricing

Surprise, surprise - menu pricing has a direct impact on your daily revenue. The more you can charge for items, the higher gross profit margin you can attain for your business.

There’s certainly some calculus involved here, though. Charging lower prices may bring in more customers, albeit at a lower profit margin. Higher prices may bring in fewer customers, but you don’t need as many patrons to be a profitable restaurant.

No matter your situation, there isn’t a cookie-cutter formula for menu pricing. You have to weigh your location, your restaurant type, and what kind of clientele you want to serve to figure out the right pricing strategy for your restaurant.

Customer Traffic

Naturally, the more customers you serve, the higher your restaurant’s daily revenue. Regardless, even in prime locations, customer traffic can vary seasonally or even hourly. Your restaurant may be more popular for lunch than dinner, or vice versa. Weekends may be far busier than weekdays. If your restaurant is near a stadium, you may see a spike on game days. In a vacation town, you may see higher traffic in the ski season or summer. All of these trends in customer traffic are important to monitor because they directly impact revenue generation.

Operational Efficiency

Finally, one of the factors that is most within your control is the efficiency of restaurant management and operating expenses. The faster you can serve and turnover tables, the more customers you can seat, especially during peak hours. Great operational efficiency will help you establish a record number of diners served in a day, and then exceed that number.

Operational efficiency depends on all aspects of the restaurant working well together. From scheduling the right staff, to the kitchen workflow, to customer service in the front-of-house, and being on top of inventory management. Everything needs to work together daily to increase restaurant revenue.

How to Calculate Restaurant Daily Revenue

Now to the good stuff: Figuring out exactly how much money your restaurant makes in a day. To calculate the restaurant's daily revenue, you need to consider the following steps:

Sales Tracking

Most importantly, you must effectively track all of your sales. A comprehensive sales tracking system records each food and beverage sale, merchandise sale, catering sale, and sales of all other line items from your various revenue sources. This will give you your topline gross revenue number that accounts for all of the cash flow you did on a given day.

Cash Register/Cashier Reports

Your restaurant’s point-of-sale (POS) system is where you and your staff record all sales throughout the day. It may be a cash register, a mobile checkout tablet, a kiosk, or something else. Nevertheless, all of these POS locations should generate a daily report that includes all sales for the day, including a breakdown of cash, credit card, and other payment methods.

An easy way to streamline sales tracking and reporting is by utilizing restaurant technology like Toast POS. 

Calculate Average Check

When you have your daily reports, you can start crunching some numbers. Start by determining the average amount spent by each customer. All you have to do is divide the total sales amount by the total number of customers served during the day.

By doing this daily, you may notice trends and fluctuations that illustrate which days or times of day are your busiest and which are your slowest, while also identifying some customer spending patterns.

Analyze Menu Mix

Your sales data should include line items of what customers ordered. By analyzing this data, including items that didn’t sell at all, you can better understand your forecasting and what your customers like and which items on your menu offerings may be costing you money.

By analyzing your menu items, you can make informed decisions about menu pricing, costs of goods sold (COGS), and menu engineering with upsells to help maximize revenue. You may find that nobody is ordering your most expensive items to make, or that an inexpensive item is among your most popular dishes. All of this is valuable information to help you increase restaurant sales and increase net profit margins.

Include Additional Revenue Streams

If they aren’t already included in your sales tracking, make sure to account for all of your restaurant revenue streams. These may include private events, catering, merchandise, or even vending machines when it comes to collection day. Including all of these earnings in your daily revenue calculation gives you a comprehensive view of the financial health of your restaurant.

Deduct Discounts and Promotions

The way restaurants account for discounts, promotions, or loyalty programs - like a 2-for-1 special - is by deducting those costs from the overall sales figure. To calculate your daily revenue, you will need to subtract any discounts, partial refunds, promotional offers, or coupons provided to customers from the total sales figure to reflect the actual total daily revenue.

Assess Refunds and Returns

You still earn something on discounts. However, you are losing money on full refunds, returns, or comped meals. Deduct these amounts from your total sales figure to accurately reflect the daily net revenue.

Calculate Net Total Revenue

Once you’ve made all the proper adjustments, you should have a sales report that accounts for the entire day’s transactional activity across restaurant revenue streams.

Ultimately, the entire process can be distilled down to this formula:

Daily Revenue = Total Sales - Discounts - Returns/Refunds

Monitor Trends and Analyze Data

Running a restaurant requires constant vigilance. You should always review daily revenue reports, as well as weekly, monthly, and annual ones. By frequently analyzing the data, you can determine customer and sales trends that have a major impact on your restaurant. While you may have major seasonal swings, being able to maximize higher profit margins on a day-to-day basis when you are in your prime season will have a major influence on your bottom line and benchmarks

By reviewing your revenue reports daily, you will be able to identify opportunities to maximize revenue, and make more strategic decisions that help your business eliminate waste and streamline operating costs.

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How much a restaurant makes in a day depends on the type of restaurant, the location, menu pricing, operational efficiency, and many more factors. A breakfast diner isn’t going to generate the same daily revenue as a Michelin-starred white-tablecloth bistro. That said, it’s not about how much you make, it’s about making enough.

By analyzing daily revenue data, you can make more informed decisions to maximize your restaurant’s profit margin, improve efficiency, and take advantage of customer and dining trends in the restaurant industry.