Is your café actually making money?

Café industry benchmarks

These are widely accepted benchmarks for cafés and coffee shops. Your ideal targets will vary by concept, location, and whether you're primarily a coffee bar or a full food café — but these are the numbers every operator should know.

Why cafés run on tighter margins than people expect

The average café operates on a net profit margin of 2.5–6.5%. High-performing cafés with strong coffee volume and controlled labour can reach 10–15%. The challenge is that cafés have high labour intensity relative to their revenue — a single barista serving 60–80 coffees per hour generates good volume, but the morning rush is short and staffing must still cover quiet periods.

Coffee itself has excellent margins — a well-priced flat white costs $0.40–0.70 to make and sells for $5–6, representing a 10–14% cost percentage. But food and cabinet items typically run at 30–38% cost, which pulls the blended number up significantly.

The most common café profit leaks

• Milk waste and overpouring — each litre of wasted milk costs real margin at scale
• Overstaffing during quiet periods — café trading patterns are highly concentrated in the morning; roster accordingly
• Cabinet food that doesn't sell — unsold cabinet items become pure waste; order to sell out by end of day
• Rent above 12% of revenue — very difficult to overcome in a café with limited evening trading
• Coffee not priced for current bean costs — specialty coffee bean prices have increased significantly; menu prices often haven't kept pace