You’re bleeding food cost somewhere. You can’t see where.
Know your
food cost
every Monday.
I help independent restaurants get a weekly food-cost routine running. I handle the setup; your team counts Sunday night, after service.
Text Joel for a free Margin Check Get your free Kitchen Margin CheckNo charge, no strings, whether you buy or not.
Fair warning — I can only hold 8 of these a month.
Two written guarantees · We don’t sell your data · Built by a cook, in Southwestern Ontario
See what the number means
01 / Why count
Nobody knows what happened in between.
You’re on the floor every day. The number lives in your head, not on paper.
You count what to order. You never count what you used.
You’re certain your crew should be counting. You’ve done it before. It didn’t last.
The information’s all there. Nobody has the time to put it together.
Your POS has an inventory module. Setting it up was a job. Keeping it up was another. Nobody’s running it.
Invoices say what came in the back door. The register says what went out the front. Nobody knows what happened in between — waste, portions, over-prep, comps and staff meals. That’s where the bleed lives. Seeing it takes a count.
Ballpark — on a normal day, what’s sitting in your walk-in, in dollars?
Take a guess. Day seven of the program, I count it with your team and hand you the real number. Let’s see how close you were.
02 / Every week
Sunday night. Monday morning. Every week.
- 01
Sunday night, after service — your team counts.
Built in the order you walk your kitchen. You never count prep — every dollar still lands in the week’s number.
- 02
Monday — you read one page.
A printed number every Monday, plus the week’s one fix. Every week builds your trend line.
- 03
Every week — your own number.
By week four it’s not measuring you against the industry anymore — it’s measuring you against you.
How I work
I don’t install software in your kitchen. I build it around your chef.
We sit down on a slow day. Your kitchen manager tells me what matters. The system gets built around that. I’ve worked a line — this is cook to cook.
One specific fix each week. Not “do better” — a named change worth making.
Every Monday, I pick the one move worth making that week. Fifty-two suggestions a year won’t kill you. Acting on the good ones keeps restaurants open.
03 / Behind the number
A number you
can question.
Your food-cost percentage is the starting point. Variance turns the gap between your food cost and your target into dollars — the week’s bleed — and shows where the number came from.
In this example, food sales are C$8,000. A food cost of 30%, against a 28% target, puts food usage C$160 above target.
That C$160 is a reason to investigate. It doesn’t, by itself, prove waste, theft, or a problem with a particular dish.
THIS WEEK’S BLEED
$160.00
Your kitchen used $160.00 more food than a 28% target allows. After four weeks, the target comes from your own kitchen — not a chart.
Counted, not guessed
Your team counted 42 items on real shelves — twice. We add what you bought. We subtract what’s left. No guesses.
Priced from your own invoices
40 of 42 count lines have a price from your own invoices. The 2 with no price are marked. We never sneak them in.
Checked against your sales
$8,000.00 food sold, from your own report, same seven days. Alcohol stays out.
What it can’t say yet
This counts all food that left the building — sold, wasted, staff meals, comps. It can’t tell you which dish caused it yet. That takes recipes.
The AI reads your invoices. It doesn’t decide your number. The math is plain arithmetic — the same every time.
04 / Week four
It’s measuring you against you.
Your target comes from your own recent weeks — the middle one. The industry range stays underneath, for comparison.
If a week’s numbers aren’t solid — a missed count, an unpriced item — the number says so. A number you can’t trust is worse than no number.
05 / The person beside you
Cook to cook.
Built by a cook.
Southwestern Ontario.
I was a line cook for most of my twenties. I started in the prep room and worked up to the line. By the time I left I’d done it all — fryers, grill, pans, expo, the occasional board call.
On fryers, if we needed four orders of fries and we were slammed, I’d throw down two baskets. On the broasters, if we needed a hundred wings, I’d drop a hundred and ten. On pans — how much cream was I using, against how much I should have been? On salads, were mine overweight? Too much cheese? Were my staff meals a little too big? Nobody ever showed me those numbers. I wasn’t stealing. I just never saw them. Every cook I know is me.
Here’s the thing about food cost. The cook needs the food moving. You need the food used well. Those aren’t the same job. Telling Randy “be more careful with fries on Friday” might get you there — for that Friday. Without a number, the discipline slides. You might already know that.
Variance gives you the number every Monday, and I sit down with you to turn it into one fix, named, that changes something on the line. I handle the setup, I count beside your team, and I make sense of the result with you.
I’ve watched owners work hard, day in, day out, and leave with pennies. Your restaurant deserves to survive. Let me help you stop the bleeding.
Joel Spitse Founder, Variance · Southwestern Ontario
06 / The Founding Restaurant Program
The first 90 days.
Set up. Count. Understand.
Founding Restaurant Program — 90 days to know your food cost every Monday.
Survives a real kitchen. Stops charging when it doesn’t.
For the first five kitchens
C$1,500
One payment for the 90-day program. No GST/HST is charged on this fee.
C$3,000 after the founding five.
You’re taking a chance on me. I’m buying proof. My Sundays cap at five kitchens.
A point is 1% of your food sales. On C$600,000 of food sales, one point is C$6,000 a year. That’s arithmetic, not a promise.
Start with a free Margin CheckWe talk first. No payment or account needed here.
How fast
Day 2: every item on your invoices, priced. Day 7: your walk-in, in dollars. Day 14: your first real number.
What your team brings
One count a week — Sunday night, after service. All the week’s invoices, receipts and credits. One sales report from your register. And one page to read on Monday morning. Your team counts on a printed sheet or a phone. One person photographs the week’s invoices. Nobody on your line has to learn software.
What happens after day 90
The program ends at day 90. It never rolls into the monthly plan by itself. If the counting is running and you want to keep going, Variance continues at C$199 a month — you say yes, then I send the link. Nothing starts until you do. If the counting stops, the bill stops.
Everything you get in 90 days.
- Two-Day Vendor Promise. Whatever paper your suppliers send, I take it on in 48 hours. Making it work is on me.
- The Priced Kitchen. Every item on the invoices you give me, priced. Day two.
- Your Walk-Order Count Sheet. Built in the order you walk your kitchen. You never count prep — every dollar still lands in the week’s number.
- The Chef Sit-Down. Their slow day. Their priorities. Built in.
- First Number Fast. Day seven: your walk-in, in dollars.
- Two Sundays With You. I count the first two beside your team.
- The Vendor Check. Price creep flagged. Promised credits tracked till they land.
- The Monday Review. A printed number every Monday, plus the week’s one fix. Every week builds your trend line.
- The Found Money Ledger. Credits back, creep caught, dead stock named. Dollars, dated, one page.
- The Week-6 Check. I come back. Still counting? Good. Fell off? We fix it.
- The Handoff Playbook. Your whole system on one page. Yours even if I disappear.
- The Day-90 Verdict. At the final review, I tell you straight — from your own trend line — whether you should stay, you’ve got this handled without me, or the counting isn’t running yet.
The First Number Guarantee.
A usable number in 14 days.
Or your money back.
If I can’t get you a usable food-cost number for one complete week — with its inputs and blind spots clearly shown — within 14 days of kickoff, you get every dollar back.
The No-Hard-Feelings Guarantee — day 35, founding five only.
Count three weeks.
Then decide.
Finish your first three weekly counts. If this still isn’t giving you a clearer picture than what you had, full refund on request. No reason needed. No hard feelings.
Either way, you keep everything. Refund or not, the priced kitchen and your count sheet are yours. The day-14 refund is automatic if I miss — you don’t have to ask. If I’m waiting on paperwork or inputs from you, the promise clocks pause for the days I’m waiting. I’ll flag anything missing within one business day, in writing — text or email counts. My software or parsing problems never move the deadlines. That risk is mine. If we disagree about whether the number was usable, you win.
07 / Counting first
Counting first. Recipes after.
I don’t start you with a recipe project. I start with what you bought, what you counted, and what you sold.
Recipe awareness means using your recipes to see where the food goes, dish by dish.
Recipe awareness is absolutely where I’m taking Variance, but I’m deliberately not building it blind. The first version gets you actual usage and weekly patterns without recipes. If you show me your recipes and item-sales reports during the program, I’ll study them — but recipe-level diagnosis isn’t in the promise I’m making you today.
It’s in the agreement: If I ship recipe awareness while you’re on the C$199 plan, it’s included. No upgrade fee.
08 / Before we talk
Fair questions.
My chef won’t count.
You never count prep. The sheet’s built in the order your chef walks. And I count the first two Sundays beside your team.
My POS already tells me my food cost.
Check what it’s counting. If it’s what you bought over what you sold, it can’t say what you used. Nothing that skips the count can.
We’re on the floor every day. We’d see it.
You do see it — in your head, every day, and it stays there. One page on Monday puts it where your partner can read it too, and where it stays when you take a night off.
I already have Square.
Square’s a good system. If its inventory module gives you a food-cost number you trust every week, keep it — you don’t need me. I’m for the kitchen that has a POS and still doesn’t have that number.
I’ve paid for software like this before and never used it.
Paying for it and running it are different things. After the program, if the counting stops here, the monthly bill stops. That’s the difference.
We’re slammed. Ask me after the season.
If counting only works when you’re slow, it won’t survive a Saturday. Start busy — that’s when it has to hold.
Fifteen hundred is a lot.
One point at C$400,000 of food sales is C$4,000 a year — more than the founding program’s whole first year (C$3,291, program plus nine months). And for the founding five: finish your first three weekly counts, and if this still isn’t giving you a clearer picture than what you had, full refund on request by day 35. No reason needed.
What happens to my invoices?
I read them, price your items from them, and keep them behind your restaurant’s own lock. I don’t need your Z-reports — a food-sales number for the week is enough. Don’t buy? Your paperwork is gone within seven days of your report. We don’t sell your data. We don’t run ads. Nobody trains AI on your data.
PrivacyWhat if we’re not ready to carry on after 90 days?
At the Day-90 Verdict I tell you straight which of three places you’re in. One: the counting is running and you want to keep going. Variance continues at C$199 a month. You say yes; then I send the link. Two: you’ve got this handled without me. You keep everything. We shake hands. Three: the counting isn’t running yet. I don’t offer the monthly plan, and we talk about what would make it run.
Are you working with restaurants near me?
I’m starting in Southwestern Ontario so I can be there for setup and the first counts. Tell me your town. We’ll make sure the drive works for both of us before either of us commits.
09 / Start with your own paperwork
Let’s look at
your kitchen.
Here’s the free part. I need four weeks of invoices, and your food sales for those same weeks. Food sales — not the bar. I come back with two pages: what your records can say, and what they can’t. Price creep checked. No charge, no strings, whether you buy or not.
Fair warning — I can only hold 8 of these a month.
Straight to Joel
Tell me a little about your restaurant.
Your name, restaurant, and town are plenty to start. I’ll reply personally to arrange the next step.
Every restaurant’s data sits behind its own lock. Your login sees your kitchen and nothing else.
We don’t sell your data. We don’t run ads. Nobody trains AI on your data.
Free Kitchen Margin Check, no purchase: your paperwork is deleted within 7 days of your report.
Or text 519-466-5515 from your phone.
The free Check is two pages from your invoices and sales. The Monday Review is what the weekly program delivers.
joel@kitchenvariance.com
519-466-5515
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