Run a more profitable restaurant.
Free, no-nonsense guides, worksheets, and calculators on food cost, labor, menu pricing, marketing, and everything else it takes to run a restaurant well.
No signup. No paywall. Most guides ship with the spreadsheet.
- 299
- guides
- 280
- free tools
- 8
- sections
- $0
- to use any of it
Find the number that's costing you
Every guide sits in one tab of the notebook. Start where the money is leaking.
Latest guides
How to Set Up Order Throttling and Prep Times for Online Orders
Learn how to set online order prep times and throttle limits so your kitchen never gets buried. Includes a capacity formula and a free calculator.
How to Set Up Discounts and Promo Codes in Your POS
Learn how to set up percentage, dollar-off and promo code discounts in your restaurant POS, with permission controls and a discount break-even calculator.
OperationsHow to Create a Sick Employee Policy for Your Restaurant
Write a sick employee policy for your restaurant that protects guests, follows food safety rules and keeps shifts covered during cold and flu season.
Labor & SchedulingHow to Set Up a Shift Swap and Time-Off Request Process
Build a simple shift swap and time-off request process with clear deadlines, approval rules and a tracking log so holiday schedules do not fall apart.
Technology & POSHow to Set Up a Daily Sales Report in Your POS
Set up a daily sales report in your POS that shows sales, labor, voids and top items in one page, so you can spot problems the same day and act fast.
Food Cost & InventoryHow to Reduce Dairy and Butter Costs at Your Restaurant
Cut dairy, butter, cheese and cream costs with smarter buying, portioning, substitutions and menu tweaks before the holiday baking and sauce rush hits.
Technology & POSHow to Set Up Courses and Fire Timing in Your POS
Set up courses, holds, and fire timing in your POS so appetizers, entrées, and desserts hit the table at the right pace and tickets stay organized.
Three places to begin
Each one is a short sequence of guides that already live in the notebook, in the order they build on each other.
Lower your food cost
Get the number, then find where the difference is going.
Get labor under control
What labor really costs, and how to schedule against sales instead of habit.
Open your first restaurant
The decisions that are hard to undo, in the order you'll face them.
Written by someone who ran the register
The Owner's Notebook is written by Jason Dicken, who built and sold Cobblestone Creamery and spent three years as a VP at SCORE, the SBA's small-business mentoring network. Every guide here started as a problem on an actual P&L.
Still paying $470+/mo for your POS?
The Notebook is free because Cobblestone POS pays for it - a free, all-in-one POS for independent restaurants with AI assistant, online ordering, scheduling and loyalty included.