A restaurant labor cost template tracks scheduled and actual hours against sales so you can see labor as a percentage of revenue by location and daypart. This free Excel version also separates avoidable overtime from demand-driven overtime, which is where most multi-site operations lose points they never see on the P and L.
Download it free
Excel (.xlsx) - works in Excel, Google Sheets and Numbers. No email, no signup.
What's inside
- Weekly labor summary - Labor % against sales by location, with variance to your target
- Daypart breakdown - Hours and cost split by shift so you can see which daypart is carrying the overage
- Overtime split - Demand-driven versus hole-plugging overtime - the single most useful column in the file
- Turnover cost line - Departures times replacement cost, so churn shows up as a number instead of a feeling
How to use it
- Pull actual hours and sales for the last 4 complete weeks. Do not use a forecast - you want what really happened.
- Enter each location on its own row. Multi-site comparison is the whole point; a single site tells you nothing about drift.
- Tag every overtime hour as demand-driven or hole-plugging. Be honest here. Hole-plugging is the recoverable money.
- Add departures for the period and apply a real replacement cost, somewhere between $3,500 and $8,000 for an hourly role.
- Sort locations by labor %. Work the worst one first, and look at scheduling before you look at headcount.
Where restaurant labor cost usually lands
| Segment | Typical labor % of sales | What pushes it over |
|---|---|---|
| Full service | 30% to 35% | Overtime from reactive scheduling, high turnover on the line |
| Quick service | 25% to 30% | Overstaffed shoulder shifts, no daypart-level forecast |
| Catering and events | Highly variable | Rush-season overtime and casual labor booked late |
| Warning zone | Above 35% sustained | Usually turnover, not wage rates - check departures first |
Running 14 locations, the thing that surprised me most was how often a site with a healthy labor percentage was quietly bleeding money through churn. One location sat at 31% and still lost $60,000 a year replacing four hourly people a quarter. The percentage looked fine. The operation was not.
Prefer to run the numbers here?
The Turnover Cost calculator does the same math in your browser - no download, no spreadsheet.
Open the calculatorFrequently asked questions
What should restaurant labor cost be?
Full-service restaurants typically run 30% to 35% of sales, quick-service closer to 25% to 30%. But a healthy-looking percentage with high turnover underneath is still losing money, because replacement cost does not appear as a labor line on the P and L.
How do I calculate restaurant labor cost percentage?
Total labor cost divided by total sales for the same period, times 100. Total labor cost means wages plus payroll taxes plus benefits - not just the wage line. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts benefits and taxes at roughly 30% on top of wages, so wage-only math understates your real number.
Is this labor cost template really free?
Yes. It is an .xlsx file, no email required and no signup wall. Download it, open it in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers, and use it however you like.
Does it work for multiple locations?
That is what it was built for. Each location gets its own row and the summary compares them side by side, because drift between sites is usually easier to fix than an across-the-board cut.
Sources
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (2025). Benefits averaged 29.7% of total employer compensation costs (private industry, March 2025).
- Gallup: This Fixable Problem Costs U.S. Businesses $1 Trillion (2019). Replacing an employee can cost one-half to two times (50-200%) their annual salary.
- National Restaurant Association: Elevated labor costs had a significant impact on restaurant profitability in 2024 (2025). Full-service wages including benefits ran a median of 36.5% of sales in 2024.
The template shows you the number. It won't fix it.
If the number comes back worse than you expected, that is a system problem, not a spreadsheet problem. Book a free Ops Screen and I'll tell you where it is leaking. If I don't find the leak, you owe nothing.
Book the free Ops Screen →Read next
- How to Reduce Restaurant Labor Costs Without Cutting Staff Hours
- How Do I Reduce Staff Turnover in My Food Business?
- How Much Time Should Restaurant Owners Spend on Scheduling?