The numbers behind running a restaurant, written down plainly.
Restaurant Atlas is an operator's reference: what a POS contract actually costs, where delivery margins go, how to schedule a kitchen without burning it out. No vendor sponsorships, no affiliate links — guides an owner can hand to a manager.
The first collection is in editing now. Everything below is the publishing index, not a promise of dates.
The publishing index
Three collections, in the order operators asked for them.
Each guide gets researched against real vendor contracts and operator interviews, then edited until a busy owner can read it in fifteen minutes. A guide ships when it's right, and its status here stays honest.
Collection one — Point of sale
What a POS quote leaves outProcessing rates, hardware leases, and the fees that appear after month three.In editing
Switching POS without losing a weekMenu migration, reprinting workflows, and training a line crew mid-service.Drafting
When a tablet is enoughCounter-service setups that skip the full terminal install.Researching
Collection two — Delivery economics
The anatomy of a $30 delivery orderCommission, payment fees, packaging, and what's left on the bone.In editing
Marketplace menu pricing that doesn't insult regularsHow operators handle the delivery markup question in the open.Drafting
First-party ordering: when it pays for itselfThe honest math on running your own online ordering next to the marketplaces.Researching
Collection three — Staffing the floor
Scheduling a kitchen that people stay inRotas, clopens, and the real cost of turnover per station.Drafting
Tipping structures, compared without ideologyPools, points, and service charges — how each plays out on a pay stub.Researching
Hiring your first managerWhat to delegate, what to keep, and how to write the job honestly.Researching
Method
Why trust a guide from a site you've never heard of?
You shouldn't — until you can check its work. Every Restaurant Atlas guide publishes with its sources attached: the contracts we read, the fee schedules we compared, and where the numbers came from. If a figure is an estimate, it says so in the sentence, not a footnote.
Nobody pays to be recommended. When a guide names vendors, it names the trade-offs too.
- Collect the paperReal contracts, rate cards, and statements from operators who share them.
- Interview operatorsOwners and managers review drafts against their own numbers.
- Edit for the pass lineIf it can't be read between lunch and prep, it gets shorter.
- Date it and revisit itEvery guide carries its last-checked date; stale guides get flagged, not quietly left up.
From the first collection
Where a delivery dollar goes.
A preview of the ledger style the delivery guides use: every cost named, nothing netted out behind a percentage. The figures below are an illustrative worked example, not data from any real restaurant.
Publication notices
Hear when a guide ships. Nothing else.
One email per published guide — the title, the gist, the link. No newsletter padding, no vendor offers, and the list is never shared or sold.