Prime Cost

The sum of cost of goods sold and labour, the two largest and most controllable costs in a restaurant.

Prime cost is your COGS plus your total labour cost. Together these are the two biggest costs in a restaurant, and the two you can actually influence week to week.

• Prime cost = COGS + labour

Operators typically aim to keep prime cost under about 65% of sales. It is the fastest health check on a P&L: if prime cost is in line, profit usually follows. Alpa surfaces prime cost in your real-time P&L so you can catch it drifting early.