The two formulas, no detours
Table turnover is how many times a table is used in a service: covers served divided by seats available. If you have 40 seats and 90 people eat, your turnover is 2.25.
Average spend is what each customer leaves: service turnover divided by number of covers. Watch the denominator — if you divide by number of tables instead of covers you get average spend per table, which is a different thing and compares to nothing.
- Turnover = covers ÷ seats available.
- Average spend = turnover ÷ covers.
- Both per service, not per day: lunch and dinner are nothing alike.
- Turnover always excluding VAT, for the same reason as in dish costing.
The sum that decides where to push
This is where you see what neither metric says on its own. A 40-seat venue, two services a day, open 25 days a month.
Start: 40 seats · turnover 2.0 · spend €22 · 25 days Covers/month 40 × 2.0 × 2 services × 25 = 4,000 Revenue/month 4,000 × €22 = €88,000 A) Push turnover to 2.5 (+25 %) 5,000 covers × €22 = €110,000 Gain = +€22,000 B) Push average spend to €24 (+€2) 4,000 covers × €24 = €96,000 Gain = +€8,000 Turnover wins... if you have the demand to fill. If you do not, A is impossible and B is the only real option.
Which of the two you can actually move
That is the question to ask before deciding anything. Turnover only rises if people are waiting: if your room does not fill, rushing service brings no extra customers, it just makes the ones you have feel pushed out.
Average spend, on the other hand, can be moved almost always, and not by raising prices: it moves with the special done properly, the dessert offered in time, and the second round nobody orders because the waiter never came back past.
Where turnover really goes
Almost never in the kitchen. The minutes disappear at the two ends of the meal, which are the two least measured.
The end is the worst: a table that has finished eating and waits twenty minutes for the bill to arrive, be paid and the change to come back is a table occupied and earning nothing. In a two-hour service, those twenty minutes are 17 % of your capacity.
- Waiting for somebody to take the order: 5 to 10 minutes.
- Waiting for the bill after asking for it: 5 to 15 minutes.
- Taking payment separately from four people: four trips with the card machine.
- Clearing and resetting the table for the next party: 3 to 5 minutes.
What values are normal
It depends so much on the format that an isolated number says nothing: a counter cafe turns ten times and a grill house working prime produce, one and a half. Comparing your turnover with the trade is no use; comparing yours this month with last month is.
What is useful is setting your own baseline with two or three months of data and watching when it moves and why. A menu change, a new waiter or an open terrace shows up there before it shows up in the bank.
Frequently asked questions
Do I divide by tables or by seats?
By seats if you want to compare services with each other, because a table of two and a table of eight are not the same thing. By tables only makes sense if your whole room is identical tables.
Does average spend include VAT?
Better without, for the same reason as dish costing: the VAT is not your income. What matters is being consistent and not changing the basis from one month to the next.
How do I raise average spend without raising prices?
With what goes unoffered for lack of time: the special, the dessert, the second drink. Almost all the spend that gets lost is lost because the waiter could not get back to the table.
Is it worth measuring in a small venue?
More so. In a small venue there is no margin to absorb a bad month, and these two metrics give warning weeks before it shows up in the till.
Is turnover measured the same on the terrace as inside?
Separately, always. A terrace turns differently from a dining room and mixing them gives an average that describes neither. Same with lunch and dinner.
Does raising prices raise average spend?
It raises spend and lowers turnover, almost always. Which is why it is worth moving first what does not have that effect: the special, the dessert and the second round, which raise spend without touching the menu.