Menu Engineering Calculator
Classify a menu item as a Star, Plowhorse, Puzzle or Dog from its popularity and contribution margin — the two axes menu engineers use to redesign a menu.
How it works
Contribution margin = price − food cost · Popularity share = item units ÷ total units × 100 · Benchmark = (1 ÷ menu items) × 0.7 × 100 · High margin if food cost % ≤ 32%
Menu engineering plots every dish on two axes: how often it sells (popularity) and how much profit each sale contributes (contribution margin). Items above the popularity benchmark and above the margin line are Stars; popular-but-thin items are Plowhorses; high-margin slow sellers are Puzzles; and low-low items are Dogs. The 70% popularity benchmark (an even menu share discounted 30%) is the industry convention, and a food cost at or below roughly a third of the price marks a strong-margin plate.
Worked example
A $18 entrée costs $6 to plate, so its contribution margin is $12 and its food cost is 33%. It sold 120 of 900 total covers — a 13.3% share against a 12-item benchmark of (1÷12)×0.7 = 5.8%. Popular and healthy-margin, it lands as a Star.
Frequently asked questions
What are the four menu-engineering categories?
Stars (high popularity, high margin), Plowhorses (high popularity, low margin), Puzzles (low popularity, high margin) and Dogs (low popularity, low margin). Each calls for a different action: feature Stars, re-engineer Plowhorses, promote Puzzles and cut Dogs.
Why is the popularity benchmark 70% of an even share?
If a menu had N items selling equally, each would take 1/N of sales. Menu engineers discount that even share by 30% so an item only needs to beat 70% of its fair share to count as popular — a widely used rule of thumb from Kasavana and Smith.
Should I really remove every Dog?
Not blindly. A Dog that anchors a niche, uses up trim from other dishes, or satisfies a loyal minority can stay. The classification is a prompt to investigate, not an automatic delete.
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Educational estimate, not financial advice.