Restaurant Capacity with a Contingency Buffer
Deliverable units = floor(hours × (1 − buffer) / hours per unit)
Gather recipe sheets, supplier invoices and stock counts. Include ingredients, service labour, and facility overhead. The starting figures are examples. Replace them with your own records.
Formula and worked example
Deliverable units = floor(hours × (1 − buffer) / hours per unit)
| Input | Example |
|---|---|
| Available delivery hours | 640 |
| Hours reserved for disruption | 15 % |
| Hours per cover | 4 |
| Calculated result | 136 units |
Choose reliable inputs
Track purchased quantities, usable yield, labour and waste before deciding on a selling price. For this restaurant calculation, use recipe sheets, supplier invoices and stock counts and a consistent definition of one cover.
- Ingredients: include the portion belonging to this cover or reporting period, and record where the value came from.
- Service labour: include the portion belonging to this cover or reporting period, and record where the value came from.
- Facility overhead: include the portion belonging to this cover or reporting period, and record where the value came from.
Use the same currency for every money input. Do not mix weekly costs with monthly revenue, or count the same expense in both an itemised cost and allocated overhead.
Should every available hour be sold?
The reserve is your scenario assumption; it is not a universal staffing recommendation.
What if this input changes?
If available delivery hours rises by 10%, this example changes by 13 units. This shows the effect of one change; it does not predict what will happen.
Open the calculator, save your baseline, then change the input supported by the least reliable estimate in your records. Compare both scenarios before committing to a price or capacity promise.