How to manage purchasing across more than one restaurant

Run purchasing at each location as if it were its own restaurant, and share only the parts that lower your prices. Each location gets its own buyer, order guide, vendor minimums, count day and weekly numbers. Across locations, you share vendor accounts where a contract price applies, and you compare what each location pays for the same item.

Your first restaurant probably runs on your memory. You know which rep to text and which case size the cooks like. A second location doubles the orders, invoices and counts, and you can't stand in both walk-ins at 7 a.m.

This guide has seven steps. Each one comes with the math or a chart you can copy, and there is a checklist at the end. The examples use two locations, Main Street and Riverside, and made-up vendors.

1. Decide who buys at each location

Pick one person per location who builds the orders, and decide who sends them. It can be the same person. Name a backup for days off. Double orders and missed orders usually start when two people each think the other one ordered.

The person who builds the order should be able to see the shelves. Your Main Street kitchen manager can't count Riverside's walk-in from across town. You can still look over both locations' orders yourself before they go out.

Write it down in a chart like this one. The cutoff is the latest time a vendor accepts an order for its next delivery.

Tape a copy inside each office door. When a new hire asks who orders the fryer oil, the answer is on the wall.

2. Give each kitchen its own order guide, in its own walk order

An order guide is the list of everything a location buys, with a par for each item. Par is the amount you want on the shelf.

Start the second location's guide from the first one, then rebuild it for the new room. Put the items in the order someone walks that kitchen: walk-in, dry storage, freezer, bar, shelf by shelf. When the sheet follows the room, counts go faster and fewer items get skipped. Remove items the new menu doesn't use.

Pars have to be set again too, because each location uses a different amount and gets deliveries on different days. A simple par formula:

Par = daily use × (days until the next delivery + 1 safety day)

Riverside uses half as many tomatoes and still needs the higher par, because its produce truck comes once a week. If you copied Main Street's 18 lb par to Riverside, Riverside would run out the day before the truck. Step 5 explains why Riverside gets only one truck.

3. Use the same vendor accounts where contract prices apply

A contract price is a price a vendor agrees to hold for you, usually on a list of items and for a set period. Broadline distributors, the large suppliers that carry thousands of items on one truck, may offer one to customers who buy enough.

Each location will usually get its own account number with a vendor, so deliveries and invoices go to the right door. When you open the new account, ask your rep to put it under the same price agreement as your first restaurant. Your combined volume is your reason to ask.

Questions to send your rep:

• Is the new account on the same price agreement as my first one? Which items does it cover?
• When does the agreement end, and how much notice will I get before prices change?
• What is the delivery minimum for the new account?
• Which days does the truck reach the new address, and what is the cutoff?

Get the answers by email. You will use them in steps 4 and 5.

Where there is no contract, as with a local produce farm or a bakery, choose vendors location by location. A vendor who serves Main Street well may not deliver to Riverside, or may deliver on days that don't fit. Comparing different vendors for one kitchen is its own job; our guide to comparing food vendor prices covers it.

4. Compare what each location pays for the same item

Two of your own accounts with the same distributor can pay different prices for the same case. The agreement may not have been copied to the new account. A promotion may have ended at one location and not the other. Sometimes a rep prices a new account from scratch.

To check, once a month:

1. Pull the latest invoice from each location for the same vendor.
2. Match lines by the vendor's item number. Two items with the same name can be different packs.
3. Confirm the pack is the same, for example a 35 lb jug at both.
4. Compare the price per case, or per pound for items sold by actual weight (catch weight).

Monthly gap = (price here − price at your other location) × units bought here per month

Worked example, Heartland Foodservice item 44120, fryer oil, 35 lb jug:

• Main Street pays $42.10 a jug. Riverside pays $38.60.
• The gap is $3.50 a jug, which is 8.3% of Main Street's price.
• Main Street buys 12 jugs a month: $3.50 × 12 = $42 a month, or $504 a year, on one item.

Send your rep the Riverside invoice and ask for that price at Main Street.

Small gaps are often timing. A price may have changed between the two delivery dates. A workable rule is to chase a gap only when it is at least 3% and at least 50 cents a unit. A 30-cent difference on an $18 case of portion cups is 1.7%, and it can wait.

5. Set each vendor's minimums per location

A minimum is the smallest order a vendor will deliver, set in dollars, cases or line items. Each location's account has its own minimum, because each delivery is a separate stop. Your two locations together might spend $1,000 with a vendor in a week, but each order still has to clear the minimum by itself.

Deliveries you can take per week = weekly spend with the vendor ÷ the minimum, rounded down

That is why Riverside's tomato par in step 2 is built for one delivery a week. If one truck a week is too few for fresh produce, you can move more of Riverside's buying to Valley Fresh until it clears two minimums. Or you can buy the fast-moving items from a vendor whose minimum Riverside already meets.

Keep a table of every vendor's minimum per location next to the order guide, so whoever builds the order knows the number before they start.

6. Run one count schedule per location

A count, also called an audit or inventory, is someone writing down what is on the shelves. Pick one count day and time per location and keep it every week, for example Sunday night after close. Count every list, value it at the prices you paid, and keep each location's numbers separate.

Two counts and the invoices in between give you COGS, which is what the food you used cost you:

COGS = opening count + purchases − closing count

Food cost % = COGS ÷ food sales × 100

One week, made-up numbers:

The combined 32.0% hides a gap. Riverside runs 1.8 points higher than Main Street, so Riverside is the kitchen to look at first: portions, waste, or the prices from step 4.

7. Read one weekly report per location

Once a week, read each location's numbers on their own. With the numbers ready, it takes about 15 minutes a location. Look at:

• Purchases this week against last week
• Food cost %, from step 6
• Items whose price went up at the last delivery
• Items delivered short, damaged or wrong, and whether the credit came through
• Items below par at the last count
• Price gaps between your locations, from step 4

Then pick two or three fixes for the week and name who owns each one.

Checklist for a new location

• [ ] One person builds orders here, and a backup is named
• [ ] Order days and cutoffs are written down for every vendor
• [ ] The order guide follows this kitchen's walk order
• [ ] Pars are set from this location's use and delivery days
• [ ] New vendor accounts are on your existing price agreements, confirmed by email
• [ ] Latest invoices are compared between locations by item number
• [ ] Each vendor's minimum is written down for this location
• [ ] Count day and time are set
• [ ] Weekly numbers are read for each location on its own

How RestaurantMate handles a second location

RestaurantMate keeps each location separate inside one workspace, the way this guide does. Each location has its own order guide, cart, vendor minimums, counts and weekly report. You build the new kitchen's guide for that kitchen, as in step 2, and each location sends its own orders.

RestaurantMate runs the step 4 check on your invoices. On the Coach page, a card called Same item, other location lists vendor products that cost less at another of your locations. It matches the same vendor and the same item number, and it only shows a gap of at least 3% and at least $0.50. Each row shows both prices, and the card tells you to ask your rep for that price. A manager only sees comparisons with locations they have access to.

For step 1, you give each person a role at all locations or at Only some. Riverside's sous chef can have the Buyer role at Riverside and see nothing at Main Street. A buyer can shop, build and send orders, and check receipts.

Each vendor's minimum is set per location, and the cart shows how far each order is from it. From a location's cart, RestaurantMate fills each vendor's online cart and checks every line, so you can review and check out yourself.

Vendors who email their invoices can send them to a RestaurantMate inbox address, such as main-street@mail.rmate.ai. Several locations can share one address, and each location imports only from the vendor reps you've listed for it.

Staff count on their phones, one list at a time. Counts are valued at the last price you paid, and an email goes out when a count is submitted. By default, each location's weekly report arrives by email every Monday as a PDF.

The RestaurantMate device is a small computer in the restaurant that signs in to your vendors' websites from your own internet connection. One device covers up to two locations, for a $300 refundable deposit. Each location gets its own 60-day free trial, then costs $99 a month. No card is needed to start.

Miguel owns restaurants in Los Angeles. When we asked him to wait three weeks for a new version before we set up his second location, he wrote back: "No, it would be great if you could onboard me today. I cannot imagine running my second location without RestaurantMate anymore." At his restaurant, RestaurantMate has cut food purchases by about 10%, and by 20 to 30% on some items where he switched vendors, and his manager gets back 4 to 5 hours a week.

The live demo has two sample locations, Main Street and Riverside, so you can see how they are kept apart before you set up your own.