Your restaurant needs constant analysis to be profitable, but it has to be done properly. Tania de Anta developed the 1-3-6 method: three frequencies, three levels of decision, three ways of looking, to professionalise how your business is managed.
01 — The premise
What is not measured cannot be improved
The phrase is not mine and it is not new. But it is one of the few things that does not expire.
I always ask clients the same thing: how many hours a week do you spend looking at data? What is your cost per hour? Multiply. The answer is usually depressing. You are keying data into a spreadsheet while your margin bleeds somewhere you are not looking.
Keying in data adds no value. Whatever can be automated gets automated. Your job is to understand, to apply analytical creativity and to make decisions.
For that I use what I call the 1-3-6 method: three frequencies, three levels of decision, three ways of looking.
02 — The method
The 1-3-6 method
The 1 — every month: the fires
Every month you deal with what is burning. The tactical layer. What is happening in your business right now.
- Daily sales and sales by time slot. You are looking for patterns: which day is falling? Which slot has emptied out?
- Purchases for the month. Has a supplier raised prices? Has any product spiked?
- Weekly average ticket. If it is falling, you have a problem with the offer or with the customer.
- Theoretical waste against real waste. What your costings predict you would throw away, against what you actually threw away. A lot of money hides in that gap.
- Costing compliance. If your costs are automated, the system flags the deviations on its own.
- ROAS per active campaign. The return on every euro invested in each campaign live that month. It tells you which deserves to stay on, which to adjust and which to cut.
The 3 — every quarter: the patterns
Every three months you move up a level. Here you are not looking at fires, you are looking at what is forming a pattern.
- Impact of launches and promotions. How each launch moved traffic and average ticket. Which type of promotion pushes which audience — does the tasting menu attract new guests? Does happy hour build loyalty?
- Impact of marketing campaigns. Traffic generated, loyalty, conversion. Which channel brings the customers who come back most.
- Quarterly ROAS, compared. How advertising return is evolving against previous quarters.
- Social media. Not likes — reach, useful engagement, the conversations that started. Real social listening.
- CRM. Who your regulars are, how often they come, what they order, when they stop coming.
- Year-on-year comparison. How this quarter compares with the same quarter last year.
- Competitor analysis. What the places within your radius are doing. What prices they move, what menu they have.
This is the analysis that gives you direction — are we on track, or are we drifting?
The 6 — every six months: the macro analysis
Every six months you do the big exercise. Here you are not analysing the restaurant: you are rethinking the restaurant.
- Menu change and macro analysis of product mix. Apply a BCG matrix to your menu: identify your stars (high rotation, high margin), cash cows (high rotation, medium margin), question marks (low rotation, high margin — to be pushed) and dogs (low rotation, low margin — out). That decides what stays, what gets redesigned and what comes in new.
- Full KPI review. Labour cost over sales, food cost, prime cost, EBITDA, occupancy ratio. All of them.
- Supplier review and economies of scale. Are you making use of volume? Is there a way to negotiate better terms, group orders, move to more efficient suppliers? A well negotiated supply chain is one of the most underrated margin levers there is.
The opposite mistake: gorging on data
Here is the trap. Many restaurateurs, once they are convinced that measuring matters, fall into the other extreme: gorging on data. Wanting to look at everything, all the time, every day.
And that paralyses just as much as measuring nothing.
1-3-6 works because each frequency has a different objective and a bounded set of decisions. The head that puts out Monday’s fire is not the same head that redesigns the menu for the next six months.
04 — Prerequisites
What you need in place before you start
For 1-3-6 to work, the data has to be clean and alive. That means having automated:
- Real-time costings. Every dish with its cost updated. If your supplier raises tuna by 8%, you know instantly which dishes have moved into loss.
- A POS with analytics connected to inventory. A sales dashboard by hour, day, dish, table and waiter — talking fluently to your costings.
- An active CRM. Knowing who comes back and how much they spend is half the profitability battle.
The good news: there is brilliant technology and there are brilliant partners for this today, and AI is widening what can be automated month by month. The challenge is no longer the technology — it is the routine and the method to use it well.
Want me to build this with you? At Eating Stories we help chefs and restaurateurs professionalise their management and build profitable businesses, with a brand and with a soul.
