What percentage of sales should wages be in an Australian restaurant?
The target is 30% to 35% of sales. Australian operators surveyed for the 2025 industry benchmarking report said the real figure was 40.25% of turnover. That five point gap is the reason wage costs were ranked the number one pressure on Australian venues, ahead of inflation and skills shortages.
| Line item | Target |
|---|---|
| Coffee cost of goods | 20% to 25% of coffee sales |
| Food cost of goods | 25% to 35% of food sales |
| Staff costs | 30% to 35% of sales |
| Rent | 10% of sales, 15% maximum |
| Utilities and overheads | 5% to 10% of sales |
| Net profit | 10% to 15% |
So the honest position is this. A well-run venue aims for the low thirties. The industry average is sitting above forty. Most operators are not failing at rostering. They are running a business where the cost of labour has outgrown the price on the menu.
What pushes a venue over
The roster is a habit, not a plan
Same four on a Tuesday because that is what we always do. Nobody has looked at what the last four Tuesdays actually took. A roster should be built backwards from forecast sales, not forwards from who is available.
The owner is working for free
This is the big one and it hides the truth. If you are covering fifty hours a week and not paying yourself for them, your wage percentage looks fine and your business is lying to you. Put a real wage for your own hours into the number. If it blows out, that is the actual state of the venue.
Prices moved slower than costs
Wage costs go up on a schedule. Menu prices go up when the owner works up the nerve. Two years of that and your percentage climbs without a single extra shift being rostered. In the same survey, almost 81% of businesses expected to raise menu prices in the following twelve months. If you are not one of them, your competitors are closing the gap and you are not.
You cannot fill the shifts
76% of operators reported difficulty filling vacancies, with more than a third calling it extreme. Short staffing pushes overtime, agency cover and owner hours, all of which land in the same line.
How to fix a roster in one week
- Pull sales by day and by hour for the last eight weeks. Not by week. By hour.
- Lay your roster over the top. Find the hours where you are paying three people to serve four tables.
- Set a wage target as a dollar figure per day, not a percentage. Percentages are for reviewing. Dollars are for rostering.
- Give whoever writes the roster that daily dollar number and make them own it.
- Cost your own hours in properly, at what you would have to pay someone to replace you.
Step five is the one people skip. It is also the one that tells you whether you have a business or a job with extra paperwork.
What I got wrong
I covered every station myself when the team called in sick. I thought that was leadership. What it actually did was hide the true cost of running the place, for eleven years, from the only person who needed to see it.
Related guides
- Why is my restaurant busy but not profitable?
- How do I make my restaurant run without me?
- Should I raise my menu prices?
Sources. Reported industry figures are from the Restaurant & Catering Industry Association of Australia, 2025 Industry Benchmarking Report, published March 2026. Target ranges are from Zest Specialty Coffee Roasters, six key benchmarks every Australian cafe owner should know. Worked examples are arithmetic you can check yourself. Everything else is a first-person account of eleven years running one venue in Enmore, Sydney.
Venues measure cost of goods differently, so treat every published average as a signal to check your own numbers against, not a rule.
I ran Great Aunty Three in Enmore for eleven years. I know which of these numbers eat an owner alive, because they ate me.
If the room is full and the money is not, the leaks are the problem. That is what the Full Plate Method does, one client at a time, by application. If the venue runs fine and the room is the problem, that is Forkcast, my marketing studio for Sydney restaurants and cafes.