How we read prep discipline as a margin signal

A prep sheet is not a recipe. It is the daily contract between what the menu promises and what the kitchen can actually produce. When it is right, a new cook can walk in on a Tuesday and hit the standard. When it is wrong, the chef is on the phone at four o'clock.

We look for four things: pars by day-part (how many of each item are needed for tonight's projected covers), a yield column (how much one batch produces), a prep quantity derived from par minus on-hand, and a column for the cook to initial when it is done.

The failure mode is a sheet that lists every item every day at the same quantity. That is a template, not a prep sheet. Pars should move with the forecast. If the sheet has not been reviewed in the last quarter, the menu has drifted from it.