References:
Price of wholesale buttermilk pancake batter: https://www.foodservicedirect.com/krusteaz-buttermilk-pancake-mix-25-pound-1-each-74798.html
Average pancake weight: https://www.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_a_pancake_weigh_in_grams So (30 g + 45 g)/2 = 37.5 g
Price of unlimited pancakes as of 2022: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2022/01/15/ihop-all-you-can-eat-pancakes/6540034001/
You also need to factor in employee pay to make and deliver them.
As well as utility cost to run the stove, lighting, pos systems, etc. plus rent/mortgage/taxes on the building, upkeep of fixtures like tables, menus, and cutlery, insurance costs, inspection costs, non sales staff (think like general managers, janitorial staff, plus HR and IT if they have it), any planned building upgrades down the line (whether to the actual building eg renovating dining areas or upgrading kitchen appliances), theft/shrinkage, damage from customers and staff being assholes, from equipment breaking down, from natural disasters, etc
Probably a lot more too. There’s a whole bunch to factor in
Accountant: Laughs in cost allocation
That's too much math and I'm le tired
That’s for one container of wholesale batter, IHOP is not paying that price because they’re buying a lot more.
I don’t know if this is helpful, but when I worked at Olive Garden 10 years ago, a spaghetti and meat sauce cost them $1.09. That includes everything, labor, etc.
If the price per pound decreases if they get a special bulk rate, it means you need to eat even more pancakes until they lose money lol.
Yeah exactly! Though the overhead of employment might bring that number back up to about your original estimate.
If that really does include everything, why do I always hear about how thin margins are in the food service industry? That doesn't sound like a thin margin to me.
Margins are thin on things that aren’t pasta. OG also had a great thing going with the wine focus. You could get a glass of estancia Pinot noir back then for like $7. The bottle was $8 retail.
Anyone who walked into an IHOP and ate 3.26 pounds of pancakes would be an absolute legend at that IHOP. I can barely eat 4 or 5 before I'm done.
Skill issue
The world record for pancake eating is 7 pounds in 8 minutes, set in 2016 by Matt "Megatoad" Stonie.
https://majorleagueeating.com/contests/693?action=detail&eventID=693
"Folks, I have no more desire to get through the rest of my life than I did to eat those pancakes. But I ate them, and the knowledge that I can keep going when all seems lost, that's a great thing to acquire. Eating thirty pancakes - FIVE STARS"
open the reserve tanks
Wolfram Alpha is crying in binary for being abused like this.
More like when you hate your pancreas. Damn.
Also: is there a theydidthemath community yet?
If there is, theydidthemonstermath is sure to follow
Why do you hate IHOP? I'm not a fan mind you, I've heard people hate McDonald's and all but this is a first for IHOP for me.
Because unlimited pancakes breaks the laws of physics and decency. Even if you had a machine whose primary goal is to make pancakes and use whatever mass is available to it, eventually there will be no more matter in the universe to make pancakes and it would be finite, not truly unlimited. This is blatant false advertising, hence I've got it out for IHOP.
They just use a pancake particle collider to generate new pancake matter.
When milk, eggs, flour, and baking powder collide at a significant fraction of the speed of light, what happens?
In all probability?
Fire.
What do you think of the term bottomless instead? Lol
Maybe all you can eat?
Gay pancakes. These are both fantastic and delicious.
That took a turn I didn't expect 🤣.
My youngest would be 80% pancake by now if that was a thing.
I don’t know why someone would hate it, but it’s a really trash chain that is easily outdone by the dingiest of local diners.
For sure! 12 year old me loved IHOP. I took my kids 15+ years ago and they hated it as much as I did.
It's alot less than that, you're only factoring in raw material, not wages, rent, utilities all that goes into providing the good to the customer who is paying for it. This is nonsense.
Nonsense is a bit of a stretch.
The IHOP exists and is staffed whether or not you are there gorging yourself on pancakes. The rent and staffing is already being spent by IHOP. The factors that can contribute is if the amount of dishes you create make them run the washer an extra time and if the pancakes cool the griddle down enough to increase the cost of heating the griddle. Both of which are negligible.
The only extra cost is the batter itself.
Further reading: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marginalcostofproduction.asp
Absolutely!
MC is a great tool for internal accounting that can help a company extrapolate the "true" cost of every item. In this pancake scenario it's important to remember that the majority of costs are fixed costs, that do not change based on whether they sell pancakes or not.
There are some accounting methods that spread the fixed costs across all items, but that doesn't actually change the profitability of the company on the whole, just the expected margin of that particular item.
You need more equipment, you likely need more people (or quality of service will go down) need more electricity. Need more space (this one is tricky, if you have extra space, then it does not cost you anything, if you do not have extra space, then it costs you a lot, so think about average)