Strategic Bookkeeping · Ontario F&B
You packed the house last weekend.
You still don't know if you made money.
Chef+ is strategic bookkeeping for Ontario F&B operators — restaurants, cafes, specialty food retail, and catering. Monthly P&L reviews, biweekly in-person pickups, and 30 years of F&B experience in your corner.
The free P.R.O.F.I.T. Assessment takes 3 minutes and shows you exactly where your margins are leaking — in real dollars, not percentages.
No pitch. No pressure. If Chef+ isn't a fit, I'll tell you that too.
What operators say
From busy and guessing to clear and confident.
A few people who know where their money goes now.
The problem
Most F&B owners are stuck between two people who each understand half the picture.
You're not short on options. You're short on the right one.
The bookkeeper who doesn't know kitchens
They record what happened. They can file your HST. But ask them why food cost jumped 3 points last month and they'll shrug. They've never been in your walk-in at 6am — and they can't tell you what the numbers mean for your Saturday service.
The consultant who doesn't know your numbers
They've read a lot of books about restaurants. They'll talk about menu strategy and customer experience. But they've never sat with your actual P&L, and their advice isn't grounded in what your specific business can actually afford to do.
What you need is one person who speaks both languages — who's read a P&L at 2am and run a Saturday rush at noon. Lived F&B experience plus bookkeeping expertise. One monthly invoice. One brain on your business.
Why Chef+
I've been where you are.
I spent 30 years running F&B operations in Ontario — including 10 years as owner-operator of a double-digit profit restaurant. I know what a bad food cost week feels like. I know what it's like to stand in your office at 2am after a packed weekend and still not know if you made money.
I became a bookkeeper because I kept seeing the same problem: operators working hard, staying busy, and still going broke. Not because they weren't good at their craft. Because nobody was watching the numbers with them.
I only work with F&B operators. Not retail. Not trades. Not "general small business." This industry only.
"Your effort should show up in your profit. If it doesn't, something is leaking — and we're going to find it."
30 yrs
F&B operations in Ontario before picking up a bookkeeping ledger.
10 yrs
Owner-operator of a double-digit profit restaurant. I know what that takes.
In-person
I show up at your back door twice a month. Nobody else does this. It's the whole model.
F&B only
Restaurants, cafes, bakeries, catering, food trucks. Nothing else. Ever.
How it works
Twice a month, I show up at your back door.
Most bookkeepers wait for you to send files. I come to you.
01
Biweekly pickup + check-in
Every two weeks I pick up invoices, cash-out sheets, and source documents in person — plus a 15-minute check-in so I know what's actually happening in your operation. Not waiting on email attachments. At your door.
02
Monthly 1-hour P&L review
Once a month we walk the P&L together. Not a status update — a real conversation. What the numbers say. What to do about it. Bring the vendor that's making you crazy. Bring the menu item you're not sure about.
03
Quarterly deep-dive
Every fourth meeting we zoom out. Trends, prime cost drift, what's working and what's not. This is where the 30,000-foot view meets your actual numbers — and where we decide if a Sprint project is worth running.
The monthly meeting is the point. You get a real conversation from someone who spent 30 years in F&B — not a bookkeeper reading numbers back to you. Email and text support between meetings for the questions that can't wait.
The P.R.O.F.I.T. Framework
Six places your margins are leaking right now.
Built on 30 years of F&B operations. Not generic business advice — F&B specific, sequential, and designed to find real dollars fast.
P
Pricing Accuracy
Most operators track food cost as a percentage. Percentages hide the truth. Oils, garnishes, portion drift — hidden costs eating your margins one gram at a time.
Typical leak: $2,500–$8,000/yr
R
Repeatability
Inconsistent prep means unpredictable costs. If every employee makes your product differently, your costing work is irrelevant. Portions creep up. Never down.
Typical leak: $3,600–$12,000/yr
O
Optimization of Effort
You're probably pushing bestsellers with terrible margins and burying the items that actually make money. The menu matrix fixes this — Stars, Workhorses, Puzzles, Dogs.
Typical leak: $10,000–$30,000/yr
F
Flow of Product Controls
Shrink, spoilage, vendor invoice errors, over-portioning, theft. If you're not counting weekly, you're bleeding 4–5% of COGS without knowing it.
Typical leak: $6,400–$16,000/yr
I
Intentional Labour Deployment
Labour is half your prime cost and most operators schedule by habit. Cross-functional deployment, revenue-based scheduling — 10–20% efficiency is sitting there.
Typical leak: $15,000–$60,000/yr
T
Turn Up Volume
Cost control without revenue growth limits your ceiling. Once the first five leaks are fixed, a 10% increase in visit frequency can lift annual revenue 20–30%.
Unlocked after steps P–I are solid
Find out which leaks are costing you the most.
The free P.R.O.F.I.T. Assessment takes 3 minutes. You get a personalized score across all six areas — in real dollars, not percentages.
Who it's for
Built for operators who are serious about their numbers.
We work with
- ✓Independent restaurants, cafes, and wine bars in Ontario
- ✓Catering and private-event operators
- ✓Bakeries, butcher shops, cheese stores, specialty food
- ✓Ghost kitchens, commissaries, and food trucks
- ✓Operators doing $400K–$3M in annual revenue
- ✓Owner-operators who don't have a CFO and don't need one full-time
Not for everyone
- —Businesses that want a $200/month data-entry bookkeeper — there are cheaper options
- —Operators not willing to show up to the monthly meeting — that's where the value lives
- —Pre-revenue concepts without a funded runway — come back when you're operating
The operating philosophy
Three things that are always true.
Everything is downstream of prime costs.
Food cost plus labour cost. That's it. If those two numbers aren't locked in, nothing else you do — not marketing, not a new menu, not more covers — will fix your margins. We watch prime costs every month. That's the job.
Profit doesn't care what you sell.
A beautiful tasting menu at a packed house can be less profitable than a Thursday lunch at a half-empty cafe. Revenue is a vanity number. What matters is what's left when you pay your bills.
We think like owners, not vendors.
If your margins improve, you keep me. If you keep me, I make more money. That's the only incentive structure that makes sense. Your P&L is my P&L — I treat it that way.
Pricing
One offer. Two prices. Everything included.
Pick based on whether you need payroll handled. No hidden fees, no upsells baked into the retainer.
Without payroll
$395
per month
For operators who run payroll through their own system, or who don't have employees yet.
- ✓Full bookkeeping in QuickBooks Online
- ✓HST filing and remittance coordination
- ✓WSIB filing and remittance coordination
- ✓Biweekly in-person pickup + 15-min check-in
- ✓Monthly 1-hour P&L review — every 4th is a quarterly deep-dive
- ✓Email and text support between meetings
- ✓Monthly reports — P&L, balance sheet, cash flow
With payroll
$495
per month
Everything in the base tier, plus full payroll processing handled.
- ✓Everything in the $395 tier
- ✓Full payroll processing
- ✓Payroll remittance — CRA source deductions
- ✓T4 and T4A preparation at year-end
Onboarding: $500 one-time. Every new client. Non-negotiable. Covers QBO setup, chart of accounts, HST/WSIB setup, and a full walkthrough of the shared Google Drive workflow. If the books are a mess going in, cleanup is scoped separately at $45/hr.
A la carte sprints
One-time projects. Quoted up front, delivered in a defined timeline.
Launch Sprint
$1,497
QBO setup from scratch, chart of accounts built for food service, bank feeds connected, HST/WSIB registered, plus a training session.
Menu Costing Engineering
$2,997
Full plate costing, ideal vs. actual food cost, contribution margin analysis, and a Stars/Workhorses/Puzzles/Dogs matrix.
HST Catch-Up
Quoted
Behind on HST filings? Catch-up returns prepared, CRA reconciled, clean slate handed back. Scoped after a 30-minute review.
Bookkeeping Cleanup
$45/hr
Taking over messy books or catching up months of un-reconciled data. Estimate given up front after a file review.
Custom Advisory
$55/hr
P&L deep-dives, vendor negotiation support, pricing strategy, cash flow forecasting. Scoped and estimated before work starts.
Culinary CFO
For operators ready to hand over the financial keys — bookkeeping, costing, compliance, menu strategy, growth planning. Multi-month engagement, scoped and priced to your specific business. This isn't a menu item. It's a conversation.
Contact for detailsStart here
Three minutes to find out where you're leaking money.
Takes 3 minutes. You get a personalized score across all six leak areas in real dollars, plus a PDF guide on how to fix the leaks you find. Results go straight to your inbox.
or
Email Steven directly: [email protected]