Statistics · data through July 2026
Restaurant food cost statistics (2026)
With the receipts. Every number on this page is computed live from a US Bureau of Labor Statistics series, and the series identifier is printed next to it. Nothing here is quoted from another article, and nothing is an estimate. If you want to check a figure, you can.
Most “restaurant statistics” pages recycle numbers whose origin nobody can find. We built this one to be checkable instead of impressive — which also means it updates itself rather than going stale the day after it's published.
The industry context
Four series, unedited. The first two are the pair guests judge you against: menu prices are the CPI for food away from home, and the grocery line is its food-at-home counterpart on the same basket methodology.
Restaurant menu prices
396.9CPI index
+3.7% over 12 months
Consumer Price Index for food away from home, US city average — what consumers actually pay at restaurants.
BLS series CUUR0000SEFV · July 2026
Grocery prices
321.6CPI index
+2.8% over 12 months
Consumer Price Index for food at home, US city average — the grocery-store comparison that shapes how guests judge your menu.
BLS series CUUR0000SAF11 · July 2026
Restaurant average hourly earnings
$22.08per hour
+4.2% over 12 months
Average hourly earnings of all employees in food services and drinking places, US, seasonally unadjusted.
BLS series CES7072200003 · July 2026
Restaurant employment
12Mthousand jobs
+1.5% over 12 months
All employees in food services and drinking places, US.
BLS series CES7072200001 · August 2026
The number operators feel
Menu prices are up +3.7% over 12 months while grocery prices are up +2.8% — a gap of 0.9 percentage points.
Restaurant prices rising faster than groceries is what makes guests feel that eating out has got expensive, regardless of whether your own margins improved. It's also the gap that makes a price increase feel riskier than the arithmetic says it is.
What ingredients actually did
Twelve-month change in the average price of the commodities restaurants buy most. US city averages — your supplier price will differ, but the direction and magnitude won't. Each row opens that commodity's page; the full set is under ingredient prices, with what a move does to a specific dish.
| Commodity | Latest | 12 months | BLS series |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tomatoes · field grown, lb | $2.00 /lb | +11.7% | APU0000712311 |
| Coffee · ground roast, lb | $9.32 /lb | +10.7% | APU0000717311 |
| Ground beef · 100%, lb | $6.89 /lb | +10.1% | APU0000703112 |
| Milk · whole, gallon | $4.31 /gal | +3.6% | APU0000709112 |
| Chicken breast · boneless, lb | $4.15 /lb | −1.2% | APU0000FF1101 |
| Flour · all-purpose, lb | $0.54 /lb | −2.5% | APU0000701111 |
| Cheddar · natural, lb | $5.74 /lb | −5.0% | APU0000710212 |
| Bacon · sliced, lb | $6.58 /lb | −7.5% | APU0000704111 |
| Butter · grade AA, lb | $3.92 /lb | −18.2% | APU0000FS1101 |
| Eggs · grade A, dozen | $2.19 /dozen | −39.2% | APU0000708111 |
Weighted for a restaurant basket
The Marji Restaurant Food Cost Index stands at 108.7, −2.0% over 12 months.
A blended figure hides more than it shows. Eggs alone moved the basket by -3.9 index points, while Ground beef moved it +2.5. See the full attribution →
Statistics we deliberately don't publish
You'll find numbers on other pages that we've left off this one, on purpose:
- “X% of restaurants fail in year one.” The commonly-quoted figures trace back to studies that are decades old, methodologically contested, or both. We don't know the number, so we don't print one.
- Average restaurant profit margin. Widely quoted as a tidy range; genuinely varies enormously by format, rent and region, and the surveys behind the common figures aren't public. Derive your own — that's what the break-even calculator is for.
- Anything about our own customers. Marji is early. When we have outcomes worth reporting we'll report them, with the customers' agreement and the method stated.
The benchmark ranges that do appear elsewhere on this site (food cost 28–35%, prime cost ≤65%) are labelled as planning conventions rather than research findings, and every page carrying them pushes you toward deriving your own. See our editorial policy.
Cite anything here
Published under CC BY 4.0 — use the figures or the charts with a link back. The underlying BLS data is a US government work and in the public domain.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Average Price Data (AP), Consumer Price Index (CU), Current Employment Statistics (CE). Retrieved via the BLS public data API.
Get the updates
These numbers change monthly. One email a week with what moved and what it does to a plate.