What do I need to use Menu Cost Engineer?

The dish; Ingredient costs; Target food-cost %.

Is Menu Cost Engineer free to use?

Yes — run it free in the browser playground (no API key needed for the sponsored trial, or bring any provider key), or install it into Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT and more via npx pm-claude-skills. MIT-licensed and open source.

Menu Cost Engineer

Q: How do I know the Menu Cost Engineer output is good?

The skill verifies itself against its own quality checks: Plate cost accounts for yield loss and waste, not just as-purchased price; Suggested price is derived from the target food-cost %, shown explicitly; Contribution margin (not just %) is reported — a high % on a cheap dish can still lose; Assumptions (yields, missing prices) are labeled, not hidden.

🔵 Stable🕐 updated 2026-07-24 🔷 SkillSpec L3 pm-hospitality

Cost a menu item to a plate cost and food-cost percentage, then price it for a target margin. Use when asked to cost a dish, calculate food cost percentage, price a menu item, or engineer a menu for profitability. Produces a plate-cost breakdown (ingredient × yield × price), the food-cost %, a suggested price for the target margin, and menu-engineering flags (star / plow-horse / puzzle / dog) so the operator knows what to promote, reprice, or cut.

▶ Run it free — no key needed 📝 Grade your existing draft View SKILL.md ↗

What to give it

▸The dish — ingredients and portion sizes (recipe)

▸Ingredient costs — as purchased, with pack size/unit

▸Target food-cost % — (default ~28–32%) or target margin, and current menu price if repricing

✅ The bar it holds itself to

Every skill in this library self-verifies — these are this skill's own quality checks, straight from its definition.

✓Plate cost accounts for yield loss and waste, not just as-purchased price

✓Suggested price is derived from the target food-cost %, shown explicitly

✓Contribution margin (not just %) is reported — a high % on a cheap dish can still lose

✓Assumptions (yields, missing prices) are labeled, not hidden

✓The menu-engineering flag drives a concrete recommendation

⚠️ What it refuses to do

Costing on as-purchased price and ignoring yield/waste (understates true cost)

Chasing food-cost % while ignoring contribution margin per plate

Pricing on gut instead of the target margin

Repricing a plow-horse so hard it becomes a dog

Treating supplier prices as fixed when spec/portion are the real levers

Install

npx pm-claude-skills add --agent claude   # or codex · cursor · gemini · hermes
# or one-line MCP (every skill, any client):
claude mcp add pm-skills -- npx -y pm-claude-skills-mcp

Related skills

🔌 Embed this skill

Drop this on your blog, docs, or site — it renders a "Run this skill" card:

<div data-pm-skill="menu-cost-engineer"></div>
<script src="https://mohitagw15856.github.io/pm-claude-skills/embed.js" async></script>

💬 Discussion

Menu Cost Engineer is one of 832 open-source professional AI agent skills — all SkillSpec L3. Try them all in the browser · ⭐ Star on GitHub · Browse the full catalog