Supersauce
The blog for people who run the place.
Benchmarks, calculators and guides for independent cafes, bars, restaurants and shops. Every number carries a named source.
64 articles
Calculators
8 articlesGross profit on a dish, a pint or a cocktail, worked out on the ex-VAT price using your own costs. No sign-up, and every assumption is shown.
Statutory Sick Pay Calculator: What a Missed Shift Costs You From Day One
Enter what a staff member was paid over the last eight weeks, the days they normally work and the days they missed. The calculator gives the Statutory Sick Pay you owe under the rules in force since 6 April 2026, and what the same absence would have cost before.
Tools28 Sept 20266 min readEmployee Cost Calculator: What a UK Hire Really Costs You a Year
Enter a rate, weekly hours and National Insurance category to see what a UK hire costs in a year and per hour they actually work, with paid holiday, employer NI and pension included, and what adding one more hour a week would cost.
Tools8 Sept 20269 min readCard fee calculator: what card payments cost your venue a year, and what your own rate really is
What your current provider is really charging you, what the same turnover costs on each published UK rate, and why a 1.2% headline can be the most expensive number on the page.
Tools21 Aug 20267 min readBeer GP Calculator: Keg Yield, Wastage and Margin Per Pint
A keg holds more pints than you can sell out of it. This calculator converts keg size to saleable pints, applies your line wastage, strips the VAT off the pint price, and gives you the GP you actually take.
Tools21 Aug 20267 min readDrinks GP Calculator: Cost Per Serve, Measures and Margin
Bottle price is not serve cost. This calculator turns a bottle into servings at your house measure, takes the VAT off the selling price, and gives you the GP on the drink as you actually pour it.
Tools21 Aug 20266 min readFood GP Calculator: Dish Cost, Yield Loss and Real Margin
A food GP calculator that accounts for the two things that make kitchen margin different from bar margin: a dish cost you have to build from a recipe, and yield loss between what you buy and what reaches the plate.
Tools21 Aug 20268 min readGP Calculator: Gross Profit on Any Drink or Dish, Ex-VAT
A gross profit calculator that takes the VAT off before it does the sum, because that is how GP is quoted in UK hospitality. Enter your selling price and your cost, get the GP percentage your supplier and your accountant would recognise.
Tools18 Jul 202612 min readHow to Price a Menu Item: Food Cost, Contribution Margin, and a Free Calculator (2026)
Food cost percentage tells you a ratio, not a dollar. Here is the plate-cost formula, the contribution-margin method most guides skip, current US and UK wage inputs, and a calculator that shows its numbers without an email gate.
Card fees and till costs
5 articlesWhat SumUp, Square and Zettle really take per transaction once the headline rate meets your own card mix, and what a POS contract adds on top.
Dojo Fees 2026: What the 1.2% Rate Really Costs a Cafe, Bar or Restaurant
Dojo advertises the lowest published in-person card rate in the UK, a 1.2% blended rate across every card type. Below an average sale of about £9, its 5p secure transaction fee makes that the most expensive option on the market rather than the cheapest.
Guides12 Aug 202614 min readSquare Fees UK 2026: What the 1.75% Leaves Out
Square charges 1.75% on in-person card payments in the UK, plus an additional 1.5% on every card issued outside the UK. That surcharge, and the fact that processing fees are not returned on refunds, decides the real cost for any venue serving visitors.
Guides12 Aug 202616 min readSumUp Fees UK 2026: What You Actually Pay Per Transaction
SumUp charges 1.69% per in-person transaction on pay-as-you-go, or 0.99% on the £19-a-month Payments Plus plan. But the 0.99% rate only covers UK-issued consumer cards, which changes the break-even point for any venue serving tourists or business customers.
Guides12 Aug 202615 min readZettle Fees UK 2026: What the 1.75% Actually Covers
Zettle by PayPal charges 1.75% on in-person card payments with no fixed pence fee and no card-type surcharge, American Express included. It publishes no international-card premium and refunds the processing fee on refunds, which is where the real difference against a same-priced rival sits.
Comparisons17 Jul 202616 min readRestaurant POS costs over three years: Toast, Square, Clover and five more, with what it costs to leave
Eight options a US restaurant would shortlist, priced over 36 months at $50,000 a month in card sales from each vendor's own pages, with the contract term, exit cost and data rules for each. The software fee is the small number.
Staff, pay and rotas
15 articlesWhat a sick day, a leaver, an overtime hour or a tronc scheme costs you, plus what the law now expects on notice, rotas and pay.
Can AI do your staff rota? Seven options for a UK cafe, bar or restaurant, from free ChatGPT to rota apps that draft it for you
Yes, partly. Free ChatGPT will lay out a week if you hand it the rules, and the rota apps that draft from your own availability and till data start at about £50 a month for a team of twelve. Here is which tool does which part, with UK prices as of 6 October 2026.
Guides6 Oct 202618 min readWhy Is My Coffee Shop Busy but Not Making Money? Where a UK Cafe's Takings Go in 2026
A queue at 8am does not pay for two people behind the counter in the quiet hours. Here is where £20,000 of a UK cafe's monthly takings goes once VAT, stock, staff, rent and card fees are out, the sum that tells you how many sales each staffed hour needs, and which half of your costs to fix first.
Guides6 Oct 202616 min readAre Tips Taxable in the UK? Tips Law, Tronc and National Insurance in 2026
Every tip a UK worker receives is taxable income, but National Insurance depends on who decides how the tips are shared. A route-by-route table for 2026/27, a worked example on one cafe's £600 week of card tips, and what the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 requires of the venue.
Guides4 Sept 202613 min readHoliday Pay for Staff Who Work Irregular Hours: What You Owe and How to Pay It
Rolled-up holiday pay, a 12.07% uplift added to every payslip instead of holiday pay held back until leave is taken, has been lawful for irregular-hours and part-year workers since leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024. Here is who qualifies, where the 12.07% figure comes from, what has to appear on the payslip, and the record-keeping duty that started on 6 April 2026.
Benchmarks1 Sept 202614 min readStatutory Sick Pay From Day One: What the April 2026 Reform Costs a Small UK Venue
Since 6 April 2026, UK Statutory Sick Pay has been payable from the first day of illness, the old earnings threshold is gone, and anyone earning under about £154 a week gets 80% of their own average earnings instead of the flat rate. Here is what that actually costs a small venue, using government figures and named operators reporting five months in, not upcoming-change guesswork.
Guides28 Aug 202611 min readWhen a Customer Harasses Your Staff: What Hospitality Operators Need to Do by 30 October 2026
From 30 October 2026, hospitality employers in England, Wales and Scotland must take all reasonable steps to prevent customers and other third parties harassing their staff. Here is what an independent venue can put in place now, without turning Saturday service into a legal exercise.
Guides3 Aug 202617 min readWhere Restaurant Overtime Comes From (and How to See It in Your Data)
A high level of demand-forecast inaccuracy can push required staffing as much as 50% higher, per Cornell hospitality research. Overtime in an independent restaurant, cafe or bar is not random: it clusters into five repeatable causes, none of which show up if you only look at the total hours. Here is how to find which one is costing you money, and why cutting hours blindly can make things worse.
Benchmarks30 Jul 202611 min readSales Per Labor Hour: 2026 Benchmarks and Daypart Decisions
What a good SPLH means in 2026, how to calculate your venue’s labor target, and what to change when a daypart falls short.
Guides29 Jul 202611 min readWhy New Restaurant Hires Quit Before Their First 90 Days
Why restaurant hires leave in their first 90 days, how to set the role up honestly, and a practical onboarding plan for a small team.
Benchmarks29 Jul 202615 min readWhat to Pay a Barista, Server and Chef in the UK: 2026 Benchmarks
Practical 2026 pay guidance for a new cafe, bar or restaurant owner: legal floors, current role benchmarks, living-wage choices, tips and what each pay strategy says about the place you are building.
Benchmarks22 Jul 202610 min readWhat Staff Turnover Actually Costs Your Restaurant: A Practical Calculator (2026)
There is no defensible flat replacement-cost figure for every restaurant role. Use this six-part method and calculator to cost your last real departure without double-counting wages or inventing turnover.
Guides22 Jul 202611 min readHow to Build a Fair Staff Rota for a Small Restaurant (2026)
A practical rota workflow for a 5-15-person restaurant: translate demand into roles, protect target hours and rest, audit fairness over four weeks, publish cleanly, and handle callouts without pressuring sick staff.
Guides21 Jul 202617 min readUK Shift Notice and Cancellation Pay: What Hospitality Owners Need to Know About the 2027 Rules
The Employment Rights Act 2025 creates three new rights for zero and low-hours hospitality staff: guaranteed hours, reasonable shift notice, and short-notice cancellation pay. Here is what each one means, the real 2027 timeline, what the consultation that closed on 25 August 2026 left undecided, and what a small venue can do now.
Guides16 Jul 202615 min readHow to Set Up a Tronc Scheme Without a Consultant (UK, 2026)
An independent tronc keeps tips off the 15% employer and 8% employee National Insurance charge that applies to ordinary wages, but only if you meet HMRC's independence test. Here is the DIY setup path, what the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 already requires, and why the consultation duty that was pencilled in for October 2026 is no longer happening then.
Benchmarks5 Jul 202615 min readRestaurant Labour Cost Percentage: 2026 Benchmarks
Compare verified restaurant labour cost benchmarks: 36.5% for US full service and 33.2% for Germany in 2024, with 2026 wage costs and a free calculator.
Menu and margins
3 articlesPricing a dish, keeping prime cost under control, raising prices without losing regulars, and getting a better deal out of suppliers.
Supplier Negotiation for Independents: Scripts That Work
Every guide to negotiating with food distributors says "build a relationship" and stops there. This one starts with the one question that actually decides your leverage (cost-plus or list pricing), gives a real email script, and runs the numbers on early-payment terms, fuel surcharges, and whether buying groups are worth it.
Benchmarks7 Aug 202613 min readPrime Cost: The Formula, a Good Percentage by Venue Type, and Which Half to Fix (2026)
Prime cost is cost of goods sold plus total labour, divided by net sales. Most operators target 55% to 65%, but the median US limited-service restaurant ran at 65% in 2024. Here are the bands by venue type, a weekly calculation, and how to tell whether food or labour is the problem.
Guides20 Jul 202611 min readHow to Raise Restaurant Prices Without Losing Customers (2026)
US menu prices rose 3.4% year over year to July 2026, the slowest pace since January 2025, yet 82% of Americans still say restaurant prices have climbed too far. Here is what protects guest loyalty when you raise a price: not a longer explanation, according to a new Cornell study, but the value guests can see.
Getting found
7 articlesShowing up on Google Maps, how many reviews you actually need, whether a website still earns its keep, and how to get ChatGPT to name you.
Reply to Google Reviews with AI Without Sounding Like a Bot: Five Prompts for UK Cafés, Pubs and Restaurants
Five complete prompts for the reviews that matter: the five-star, the mixed three-star, the angry one-star that gets the facts wrong, the review that names your staff, and the one you think is fake. Plus the four things you should never let AI do in a reply.
Comparisons8 Sept 202611 min readTools for handling Google reviews: what each one does, and what you still do yourself
Five options a single UK venue would shortlist, judged on what they cover, whether they draft or post, and what they cost. Out of the box, every one of them still needs you to press send.
Guides14 Aug 202611 min readHow to Get ChatGPT to Recommend Your Cafe (and Why Most Venues Are Invisible to It)
Getting recommended by ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity when someone asks for a good local spot is almost entirely an off-page problem: their crawlers do not render JavaScript, and none of them owns a local index the way Google Maps does. The prompts to test it yourself, and where a citation actually comes from.
Benchmarks28 Jul 202611 min readHow Many Google Reviews Does a Restaurant Actually Need? (2026)
No credible study sets a minimum review count for a restaurant to rank on Google Maps, and the "50+ reviews" thresholds that dominate search results trace back to unsourced blogs or a misapplied ecommerce study. Here is what a 2026 survey of local-search experts actually found matters more than the number on your profile.
Guides27 Jul 202611 min readDoes Your Restaurant Still Need a Website in 2026? Profile vs. Site, With Numbers
A Google Business Profile gets a restaurant found on Maps, but Google's own documentation says a page must be indexed and snippet-eligible before an AI Overview can cite it, and a profile is not a page. Here is what a profile does, what only a website does, and a decision framework for a one-to-three-venue owner.
Guides25 Jul 202612 min readRestaurant Not Showing Up on Google Maps? Here's How to Diagnose Why (2026)
A missing Google Maps listing has one of five distinct causes: never verified, suspended, duplicated, wrongly marked permanently closed, or simply too new to rank yet. This diagnostic walks through each one with Google's own timelines, so you fix the actual problem instead of guessing.
Playbooks24 Jul 202611 min readHow to Rank Higher on Google Maps: A Playbook for Restaurants, Cafes and Bars (2026)
Google ranks local listings on relevance, distance and prominence, not payment. This playbook breaks the real 2026 ranking-weight data into quick wins, ongoing work and slow, specialist levers, so an independent owner knows where to spend an afternoon and where not to bother.
Filling tables
7 articlesDead Tuesdays, quiet Januarys, what a returning regular is worth, and how much to spend on marketing in the first place.
How Weather Affects Restaurant Sales in the UK, and the Cash Reserve That Covers It
In a February with 42% more rain than average, UK restaurant sales fell 1.1% and bar sales 4.1%, and pub and bar sales fell 13% on a wet bank holiday Saturday. Meanwhile 29% of UK hospitality businesses hold no cash reserve. How weather moves your takings, how to measure your own rain penalty, and how big a reserve you need.
Guides11 Sept 202613 min readMenu Engineering Beyond the Matrix: What Changes Sales on the Page (2026)
Classifying a dish as a Star, Workhorse, Puzzle or Dog is the easy half of menu engineering. The eye-tracking "golden triangle" consultants sell has been tested against real sales data and failed; descriptive names, price wording and category position have each replicated instead.
Benchmarks12 Aug 202611 min readWhere Diners Actually Find You in 2026: Maps, TikTok, or Word of Mouth?
Word of mouth is still the single largest US discovery channel at 38%, but for Gen Z, TikTok has overtaken it as the top way they find a new restaurant. A channel-priority framework by guest type, built from Toast and CGA survey data, not a "be everywhere" listicle.
Playbooks11 Aug 202611 min readRestaurant Slow Season Marketing: What UK Data Actually Says About January (2026)
The NIQ RSM Hospitality Business Tracker shows UK bar sales down 4.9% year-on-year in January 2026, while August pub and restaurant sales have grown for two years running. Here is what actually causes the UK dip, why it is a spending problem rather than an absent-customer problem, and a costed plan for fixing it.
Benchmarks10 Aug 202611 min readRestaurant Loyalty Programmes: What Repeat Guests Are Actually Worth (2026)
The only rigorously sourced figure on repeat-guest economics comes from the US: 7% of guests can drive up to half of order volume. Here is what UK data actually shows, what loyalty software really costs against a free list, and when it earns its keep.
Guides8 Aug 202615 min readFixing a Dead Tuesday: A Costed Playbook for Empty Weeknights
Toast's own US reservation data shows Tuesday bookings rose 15% year-over-year in 2025, the largest gain of any day. A dead weeknight is rarely permanent, it just has one of three causes. Here is how to diagnose which one you have, and what each fix actually costs before you touch a discount.
Benchmarks6 Aug 202612 min readHow Much Should a Restaurant Spend on Marketing? 2026 UK Benchmarks
The "3-6% of revenue" marketing budget rule traces to no trade body or study. Real UK channel costs, a build-your-own-budget calculator, and the retention data that matters more than the percentage.
AI, in practice
6 articlesWhich tools earn their keep in a small venue, and prompts that do real jobs: weekly reports, draft rotas and review replies.
AI Phone Answering for Restaurant Bookings: What It Costs a UK Venue and When to Skip It (2026)
A UK restaurant can put an AI voice on its phone for about £99 a month ex VAT at 300 calls, but the products built for restaurants mostly do not publish a price. What is on sale, the arithmetic, the rules on recording, and when a booking link does the job.
Guides6 Oct 202612 min readAI for cafés, pubs and restaurants: what it can do with your own numbers
AI can already do six jobs for an independent café, pub, bar or restaurant. Free ChatGPT handles the writing half of each one; the other half needs your own till, rota and review data. Here is which is which, job by job, with a guide for each.
Comparisons6 Oct 202613 min readAI menu maker for cafés and restaurants: six options compared, with prompts that write the descriptions
Free ChatGPT writes the dish descriptions and a free Canva or Adobe Express plan turns them into a print-ready menu. Here is what each AI menu maker does, what it costs as of 6 October 2026, and three prompts you can paste into any chatbot today.
Guides5 Sept 20269 min readHow AI and Hospitality Consultants Can Get More Done Together
Super44 keeps the numbers, decisions and follow-through moving. UK hospitality consultants bring experience, on-site observation and specialist influence. Four situations show where the combination is particularly useful.
Comparisons26 Aug 202610 min readThe AI tools worth using to run a restaurant, and who each one suits (2026)
Six options an independent owner would really shortlist, judged on the one thing that decides most of it: whether the tool can see your venue's numbers, or whether you have to paste them in.
Guides10 Jul 202616 min readChatGPT Prompts for Restaurants: Reports, Rotas, Reviews and More
Seven copy-ready ChatGPT prompts for UK restaurants, cafes and bars: menu descriptions, Google review replies, margin reports, legal staff rotas, social posts, supplier emails and translations, with what to paste in and what to check.
Rules, tax and funding
6 articlesMusic licences, Martyn’s Law, business rates and government-backed lending, each with what it costs and how to tell whether it applies to you.
Right to Work Checks for a Small Venue: The Penalty, the Process, and What Changed on 1 October
A right-to-work check has to happen before anyone works a single shift, trial shifts included, and skipping it costs a UK hospitality employer £45,000 for a first breach and £60,000 for a repeat one. Here is the process, what the statutory excuse covers, and what changed for agency, subcontracted and gig staff on 1 October 2026.
Guides7 Sept 202613 min readYour Food Hygiene Rating: What a Low Score Costs You, and How to Fix It
A 0-2 in England, Wales or Northern Ireland gives you three separate levers: a 21-day appeal, a right of reply, or a paid re-visit once you have fixed the whole business. Here is what each one does, sourced from the FSA's own rules.
Guides17 Aug 202616 min readWhat a Music Licence Costs a Cafe, Bar or Restaurant, and When You Don't Need One
TheMusicLicence, the joint PPL and PRS for Music licence UK venues need to play copyrighted music, starts at £364.62 a year before VAT for a small pub and £400.81 for a restaurant or cafe, by PPL PRS's own figures. What VAT adds, what pushes the bill higher, who is exempt, and why a venue that never got round to it can be billed for six years of past music use.
Guides15 Aug 202613 min readDoes Martyn's Law Apply to Your Pub, Bar or Restaurant?
Martyn's Law applies once your venue could reasonably have 200 or more people on site at once, staff included, even for a single occasional event. Here is how to tell your tier, what standard tier actually requires, and why the regulator itself is warning owners not to buy security kit they do not need.
Guides14 Aug 202612 min readYour Business Rates Bill Changed in April 2026: What Happened, and What You Can Still Do
Two separate changes hit English hospitality business rates bills on the same day, 1 April 2026, and most coverage runs them together. Here is what actually moved your number, why pubs got help that restaurants and cafes did not, and the worked numbers for a small venue in each position.
Guides13 Aug 202616 min readThe Growth Guarantee Scheme for Cafes, Bars and Restaurants: How the Government-Backed Loan Actually Works
The Growth Guarantee Scheme has no minimum trading period and no turnover floor, yet ranking broker pages currently tell UK hospitality owners they need two years of trading and £200,000 in turnover to qualify. Here is how the guarantee actually works, what changed on 13 July 2026, and when borrowing is not the right call.
More from the blog
7 articlesEverything else worth a read.
Restaurant No-Show Fees and Deposits in the UK: What You Can Charge, What It Costs, and Which Policy to Pick (2026)
A UK restaurant can keep a deposit or charge a no-show fee, but only up to what the empty table costs it, and a deposit kept in full should be a small share of the price. A default policy for a single venue, the arithmetic behind it, what the booking tools add, and when to charge nothing.
Guides10 Oct 202616 min readWhat Delivery Apps Really Cost a UK Restaurant: Uber Eats, Deliveroo and Just Eat, All In (2026)
Uber Eats publishes 30% for its riders and 13% if you deliver or the customer collects. Deliveroo charges its fee on the VAT-inclusive order, with VAT on top. What a £25 order leaves on each route, where going direct saves real money, and where the app costs about what doing it yourself would.
Guides25 Sept 202613 min readThe Employment Allowance for a Small Venue: Who Can Claim the £10,500, and Who Cannot
The £10,500 Employment Allowance is one credit against your venue's employer National Insurance bill for the whole tax year, and any venue with someone besides a sole director earning over £96 a week can usually claim it. Who is excluded, how to claim it, and the month it runs out.
Benchmarks21 Sept 202616 min readThe Real Cost of an Hour of Staff in the UK: Employer NI, Pension and Holiday for 2026
A UK hospitality employer paying the National Living Wage for a 30-hour role owes about £431.93 a week once employer National Insurance, the statutory minimum pension and holiday accrual are added, not the £381.30 on the payslip. Here is the real hourly cost by wage band, who the on-costs do not apply to, and what changes when you cost a rota against it.
Guides10 Sept 202611 min readThe First Six Months: A Cash Flow Survival Plan for a New Cafe, Bar or Restaurant
A new UK venue typically needs cash equal to six to nine months' rent before it even opens, and most of that goes before a single cover is served. Here is what drains cash in the first six months, what the UK's own failure data does and does not show, and a practical plan for building the runway to get through it.
Comparisons8 Sept 202610 min readBooking systems for an independent restaurant: what each one costs, and who owns the diner
Five options a single UK restaurant would shortlist, with the one published price ladder in the category and an honest read on what the other four are likely to quote.
Comparisons8 Sept 202613 min readTill and EPOS systems for a first cafe: what each one costs, and what it costs to leave
Seven options a first UK cafe would shortlist, with the monthly price, the card rate and the exit terms from each vendor's own pages. The subscription is the small number.