Your daily sales are covers × average ticket. Covers are how many people ate; average ticket is how much each one spent (sales ÷ covers). Table turnover is how many times each seat was used in a service (covers ÷ seats). Splitting sales into these parts tells you what is going wrong: a slow day can mean too few people or people spending too little, and each problem has a different fix.
The three sums
- Covers: people who ate in the dining room during a service. Do not count delivery or takeaway orders; they get their own line.
- Average ticket per person = dining room sales ÷ covers. Use sales before tax, so you can compare them with your costs.
- Turnover = covers ÷ seats. With 40 seats and 80 diners at dinner, each seat was used twice.
If your till gives you the ticket per table rather than per person, write down how many sat at each table. A table of six spending $150 and a table of two spending $80 tell you very different things.
A simple daily log
You do not need software. A sheet or notebook with these columns, one row per service:
| Date | Service | Covers | Dining room sales | Ticket | Turnover | Delivery (orders and sales) | Note |
|---|
The note is for whatever explains the day: holiday, big match, payday, heavy rain, a large party. After a month, those notes are worth as much as the numbers. To see which other figures are worth tracking each week without drowning in data, read what to measure in your business.
Worked example: a week at a 40-seat bistro
Dinner only, Tuesday to Sunday. Sales before tax.
| Day | Covers | Sales | Ticket | Turnover |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday | 48 | $1,152.00 | $24.00 | 1.20 |
| Wednesday | 55 | $1,347.50 | $24.50 | 1.38 |
| Thursday | 62 | $1,550.00 | $25.00 | 1.55 |
| Friday | 88 | $2,376.00 | $27.00 | 2.20 |
| Saturday | 104 | $2,912.00 | $28.00 | 2.60 |
| Sunday | 70 | $1,820.00 | $26.00 | 1.75 |
| Week | 427 | $11,157.50 | $26.13 |
Two things stand out:
- Tuesday to Thursday is short of covers and the ticket is low. Tables sit half empty and people order a main and leave.
- On Saturday turnover is 2.6. Every seat was used more than two and a half times in one evening. There the limit is seats and speed of service, not demand.
What each lever changes
To compare levers, you need to know what each cover costs you in food. Say your plate cards put it at $8.00 on average. If you do not have that yet, start with the cost of each plate.
More covers on Tuesday. If you bring in 6 more covers (a midweek offer for a nearby office, say) at the same $24.00 ticket, each one leaves 24.00 − 8.00 = $16.00. That is 6 × 16.00 = $96 more every Tuesday. But more people may mean more staff at the peak.
Higher ticket on Tuesday. If each guest adds $3.00 on average (a house lemonade, a starter to share) and that costs you $0.80 in ingredients, each cover leaves $2.20 more. With the same 48 covers: 48 × 2.20 = $105.60 more. No extra seat, no extra server. Which drinks and extras leave the most is in drinks, sides and extras.
Faster turnover on Saturday. If you take payment at the table, fire plates without delay and reset tables straight away, and that lets you seat 6 more people at a $28.00 ticket, that is 6 × (28.00 − 8.00) = $120 more. This lever only works on nights with a queue; on a Tuesday with empty tables, turning faster brings in nobody.
The practical rule: on quiet days, work on ticket and covers; on full days, work on turnover and ticket. Staff rotas should follow the same pattern, as explained in scheduling staff around your sales.
Your covers target
The log also tells you whether you are reaching break-even. The sum is:
Covers to break even = fixed costs ÷ (average ticket − food cost per cover)
If the bistro's weekly fixed costs (rent, wages, your pay, utilities) come to $7,200:
- Each cover leaves: 26.13 − 8.00 = $18.13
- Covers to break even for the week: 7,200 ÷ 18.13 = 397.1, so 398
- Per day on average: 398 ÷ 6 = 66.3, about 67 covers
At 427 covers a week, the bistro is above break-even, but only by 29 covers. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are all below the daily average it needs; Friday and Saturday carry the week. One quiet weekend and the whole week is in the red. The full method is in the guide to break-even, and the break-even calculator gives you plates per month and per day.
Minimum turnover comes from the same numbers: 67 covers a day ÷ 40 seats = 1.68 turns per service. If your room does not reach that even on good nights, rotas and promotions will not fix it; you need to look at ticket, costs or rent.
Mistakes when reading the numbers
- Mixing delivery with the dining room. The ticket on an app order is not the ticket of a seated guest.
- Looking only at sales. A $1,800 night can be 60 people spending $30 or 90 spending $20. Those are different nights.
- Comparing Saturday with Tuesday. Compare Tuesday with Tuesday and Saturday with Saturday.
- Skipping the notes. Without the note about the holiday, in three weeks you will not remember why that Thursday did double.
To see how covers and ticket fit with plate cost, prime cost and break-even, read how to make a restaurant profitable. To find out which dishes to push to raise the ticket, see menu engineering.
Do it with the calculator
Put each dish's recipe into the food cost calculator with its grams and prices, and it gives you the cost per portion. From that you get your food cost per cover, the number you need to know what each seated guest leaves you.
Frequently asked questions
Is average ticket per person or per table?
Pick one and stick to it. Per person (sales ÷ covers) is more useful for comparing days, because a table of six and a table of two do not spend the same. If your till only gives you per table, also note how many people sat there.
Do delivery orders count as covers?
No. Keep them on a separate line with their own ticket per order. Mixing them in distorts the dining room's average ticket and makes table turnover meaningless.
What is a good table turnover rate?
The one you need to reach break-even with your seats and your ticket. Work out how many covers you need a day and divide by your seats: that is the minimum turnover your room has to manage.
How do I raise the average ticket without raising prices?
With what gets added to the main: drinks, starters to share, desserts. Having servers offer them every time, with one concrete sentence, often moves more than any change to the menu.