Restaurant profit margin in the UK: a worked example, not an industry average

There is no single UK restaurant profit margin worth quoting. A chip shop on a Friday and a dining room on a Tuesday do not share a number, and this page will not invent one. What you can do is the same sum on your own invoice: what the dish sold for, what the food in it cost, and what left the ticket before the food was even paid for.

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The dish sum

Take one made-up dish so the arithmetic is visible. It is not a Chefzi customer and it is not a benchmark.

£10 minus £3 is £7. £7 divided by £10 is 0.7, which is 70%. That 70% still has to cover wages, rent, gas, packaging, waste and VAT. Calling it profit is how a menu looks healthy on a spreadsheet and tight on a Sunday.

Do the same sum with your own prices. Weigh the portion you actually serve, not the portion on the recipe card. Oil, sauce and the bit that gets dropped on the pass belong in the £3, or the margin is a story.

What a commission does to that dish

A marketplace commission is taken from the selling price. It does not wait until wages are paid.

Just Eat's UK sign-up page is reported to list 14% + VAT when you deliver yourself and 30% + VAT when Just Eat delivers. Those percentages are reported because a direct fetch of the sign-up page was blocked. The commission totals people talk about are before VAT is added on top of the commission. They are not a quote from your statement. Your statement is the figure that matters, and the commission calculator is where you type it.

On the same made-up £10 dish, a reported 30% commission is £3.00 before VAT on that commission. The food still cost £3.00. The £7.00 that looked like food margin is now £4.00 before wages, rent and the VAT on the commission. A reported 14% on the same dish is £1.40 before VAT on the commission. Neither figure is a promise about your shop. They show why the rate and the basket have to be read together.

If you are on Just Eat, read the price clause before you advertise a lower price on your own site. Just Eat's UK partner terms (clause 7.18, version dated 18 December 2025) say that, unless you've agreed otherwise, prices and offers on Just Eat must be no less favourable than those on your own online channels. A reason to order direct that is not a lower price, such as a shorter collection time, does not depend on that clause. The longer note is how to move Just Eat regulars to your own website.

A flat monthly fee

Chefzi does not take a percentage of the dish. After the free period it is £19 a month per location for cash or no-card ordering, or £29 a month with online card payments through Stripe. Standard Stripe fees apply. Those card fees are Stripe's. Prices exclude VAT. There is no setup fee and no commission on a direct order. The same monthly fee applies on a busy Friday and a quiet Tuesday. Details are on pricing.

That does not make the food margin 100%. It means the software line does not grow when the queue does. Delivery, if you do it, is still your driver, your fuel and the fee you set on the zone. Chefzi does not supply a courier.

What to write down this week

1. Pick five dishes you sell most often. Write the selling price and the food cost of the portion you serve.
2. Divide the food left by the selling price. Keep the result next to the recipe, not in a slide.
3. If a marketplace takes those dishes, write the rate from your statement next to the reported 14% and 30% figures, and see which one you actually pay.
4. Put one direct link on Google, the window and the receipt. Do not put that link on a marketplace bag.

The order-taking app rings until someone accepts or rejects. It does not calculate your margin. The sum above is the one you do from the invoices.