Market price (MP)
Also called: mp · market price menu
Market price means the dish is priced at service rather than on the printed menu, because its main ingredient moves too fast to print — typically whole fish, shellfish, and premium seasonal produce. It's legitimate for genuinely volatile items and corrosive when used to hide a price.
The two rules
- The server states the price unprompted, before the guest orders, every time. A guest who has to ask is already uncomfortable; a guest who finds out on the check is not coming back.
- Use it only where the cost genuinely swings. If your MP item lands within a few dollars of the same number all year, it isn't market price — it's an unprinted price, and guests read it as evasion.
A middle option worth considering: print a range ("market, typically 46–58") or a current price on a daily insert. You keep the flexibility and lose the ambush. If your reason for MP is that a commodity is moving under you, tracking that ingredient directly is usually the better fix.
Worked example · Does this item actually justify MP?
- Whole branzino, cost range over 12 months
- $9.40 – $16.80/lb
- Swing
- 79%
- Price needed at 68% margin, low
- $29
- Price needed at 68% margin, high
- $52
- Verdict
- genuinely MP
Run the same test on your other MP items. Anything whose implied price lands within a few dollars all year isn't market price — it's an unprinted price, and guests read the difference.
| Approach | Guest experience | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Printed price at the annual average | Cleanest | Items swinging under about 20% |
| Printed range | Honest, slightly unusual | Items swinging 20–50% |
| Market price, stated by the server | Requires discipline | Genuinely volatile, above 50% |
Run the numbers
Menu price calculator
The guide that works it through
How to Price a Menu Item: Markup vs. Margin
The formula for pricing a dish from plate cost and target margin, the markup/margin confusion that underprices menus, and the three adjustments before a price goes on the menu.
Related terms
Menu price
The price a dish is sold at — set from plate cost, target margin, and what the dish is worth in the room.
Price creep
Small, frequent supplier price increases that individually look ignorable and collectively remove several points of margin a year.
Commodity index
A tracked measure of what a food commodity costs nationally — the benchmark that separates a market move from a vendor move.
Seasonality index
A month-by-month multiplier describing how an ingredient's price or a restaurant's volume moves through the year.