Free Restaurant Pro-Forma

A quick update for readers who continue to find this restaurant pro forma useful.

I originally created this tool in 2016 to help people think through the economics of a food-and-beverage concept. That question still matters: can the business work financially?

But another question has become harder to ignore: can people actually find it?

Many modern food-and-beverage concepts no longer fit neatly into one category. A coffee shop may become a café, market, restaurant, bottle shop, event space, and community gathering place. That can make the business more useful to customers, but harder for search engines, maps, review sites, and AI systems to understand.

I wrote a related post about that discovery problem here: “The Discovery Problem Hiding Inside Mixed-Use Food & Beverage.”

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Lots of entrepreneurs consider the restaurant business.  It’s easy to sit in a restaurant and imagine doing it better.  I’m no different.  So, when presented with the opportunity to invest in a new restaurant business, I dove in like a Shark Tank advisor.  

In reality, the restaurant business is hard.  It’s really hard.  Those that have mastered the trade are often immensely successful; everyone else seems to struggle.

Like any new business, the best place to begin is to develop a detailed understanding of how wealth is created and lost.  There are four essential steps to this process:

1. Find truly successful industry advisors.

2. Read all of the how-to (succeed) advice on the Internet.

3. Create an operating budget from scratch.

4. Validate assumptions with your advisors.

To save everyone that stumbles upon this post some of the time it takes to create an operating budget from scratch, here’s the one I created.

Some things you need to know:

• There are many hidden columns in the workbook.

• Many variables are within the hidden columns.

• We were planning a HUGE multi-purpose facility in the middle of a densely populated city.

• Some of the numbers were intentionally altered to differ from the actual plan.

• You should validate F&B costs, labor costs, and other costs, as a percentage of gross sales, with your advisors.

• Sales and marketing costs reflect the effort required to drive a significant event business.

• The ‘comps’ within the workbook were surfaced from information we found on the Internet.

• The ‘impact’ tab was our attempt to measure the social impact of this business.  

For each division (restaurant, cafe, events) we estimated an average week two years in the future; projections then ramped up to and over this estimate on a monthly basis (over a five-year period).

Anyone with some basic knowledge of Excel should be able to pick apart and customize this workbook to fit your needs.  

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2026 AI Update.

Upload the Excel workbook to your favorite AI and run the prompt below.

Prompt:

I have attached a restaurant pro forma spreadsheet.

I want you to act as an experienced restaurant operator, hospitality consultant, financial analyst, and spreadsheet designer.

First, thoroughly review the attached workbook.

Before making recommendations, identify:

• The worksheets contained in the workbook

• The purpose of each worksheet

• The major revenue categories

• The major expense categories

• The key operating assumptions

• The overall financial logic of the model

• Any formulas, calculations, dependencies, or relationships that appear important

Do not recreate the workbook yet.

First, explain your understanding of the model and ask me the following questions:

1. What type of food-and-beverage business am I planning?

2. What products or services will I sell?

3. What dayparts will I serve?

4. Will alcohol sales be part of the concept?

5. Will events or private functions be part of the concept?

6. What annual revenue range am I targeting?

7. What level of detail do I want in the finished model? (very simple, simple, moderate, detailed)

8. What are my primary concerns? (startup cost, profitability, labor, occupancy, cash flow, financing, growth, etc.)

Wait for my answers.

After I respond:

Create a simplified pro forma that preserves the most valuable thinking from the attached workbook while eliminating unnecessary complexity.

Your goal is not to recreate the workbook exactly.

Your goal is to create a cleaner model that an aspiring food-and-beverage entrepreneur can understand and maintain.

For every worksheet you recommend:

• Explain why it exists

• Explain what decisions it helps the owner make

• Explain what information belongs there

• Explain what can safely be omitted

Then recommend:

• The ideal worksheet structure

• The ideal input assumptions

• The ideal revenue model

• The ideal labor model

• The ideal occupancy model

• The ideal operating expense model

• The ideal cash flow model

• The ideal summary dashboard

Where appropriate, suggest ways to reduce the number of worksheets, formulas, and inputs.

Finally:

1. Identify the 20% of the workbook that creates 80% of the planning value.

2. Identify assumptions that are commonly wrong.

3. Identify financial blind spots that new operators often miss.

4. Explain how you would modify the model for:

   • Coffee shop

   • Café

   • Bakery

   • Restaurant

   • Market

   • Brewery

   • Winery

   • Mixed-use food-and-beverage operation

Conclude with your recommended simplified workbook structure and explain why it would be easier to use while still providing meaningful planning insight.