I got a call last week from an operator in Lake Charles who'd just done his quarterly numbers. Brisket cost him $4.89/lb in January 2023. He's paying $6.40 now. Same supplier, same grade. His reaction was what I'm hearing from about half the people I talk to these days: "Donna, do I raise prices again or do I change what I'm selling?"
The answer, for most operations, is both. But the how matters more than the what.
The Yield Problem Nobody Wants to Talk About
Here's the thing about food cost percentages — they lie to you if your yield is inconsistent. I had an operator in Baton Rouge running pork butts through a bargain smoker he'd picked up used. His food cost spreadsheet said 31%. His actual plate cost told a different story because he was losing an extra 8-12% to moisture loss from temperature swings. (On a 200-lb weekly pork buy, that's roughly $340/week in recovered yield he was leaving on the table.)
Before you redesign your menu, look at what's happening between your walk-in and your serving line. Are you actually getting the yields your menu pricing assumes? Most operators I work with haven't recalculated since they opened. Brisket that used to yield 55% finished weight might be coming out at 48% if your equipment isn't holding temp the way it used to.
Temperature consistency isn't a spec sheet talking point. It's money. The difference between a smoker that swings 25 degrees and one that holds within 5 degrees shows up directly in your yield percentage. I've seen operators pick up 6-8 points of yield just by switching to equipment with proper rotisserie airflow — something like an SP-1000 or MLR-850 where the rotation keeps everything in the optimal heat zone instead of cooking unevenly.
What's Actually Working on Menus Right Now
The operators making it through 2024 with their margins intact aren't doing anything revolutionary. They're just being smarter about the obvious stuff.
Portion engineering. One guy I work with in Houston dropped his brisket sandwich from 6 oz to 5 oz of meat, added a house-made pickled onion relish, and raised the price $1.50. His customers didn't blink. The perceived value went up because the plate looked more interesting. His food cost on that item dropped four points.
Another operator outside New Orleans restructured her combo plates entirely. Instead of "pick two meats," she went to "pick one meat, two sides" as the default, with a premium tier for two-meat plates. Average ticket stayed almost identical, but her protein cost per plate dropped significantly.
Some of this is just presentation psychology. A 4 oz portion of pulled pork piled high on a smaller plate reads as generous. The same portion spread flat on a large plate looks skimpy. I'm not saying trick your customers — I'm saying don't sabotage yourself with plating that makes reasonable portions look cheap.
Secondary cuts and off-menu specials. Beef cheeks, pork belly burnt ends, smoked chuck roast, turkey breast. These aren't novelties anymore — they're margin protection. Beef cheeks were running around $3.80/lb last time I checked with my usual suppliers. You can sell a beef cheek plate at brisket prices and your customers will think they're getting something special. Because they are.
One thing I've noticed: operators with larger rotisserie smokers have more flexibility here. If you're running an SPK-1400 or SP-1500, you've got room to experiment with a test batch of something new without displacing your core production. Smaller operations working with an SPK-500 or SPK-700 have to be more strategic about when they test new items — usually early week when volume is lower.
The Chicken Math Revelation
I'll be honest — I spent years dismissing smoked chicken as a low-margin afterthought. Background noise on a BBQ menu. I was wrong.
Whole chicken cost is somewhere around $1.80-2.20/lb depending on your supplier and volume. Smoked properly, you're looking at maybe 72% yield. Compare that to brisket at $6+/lb with 50-55% yield. The margin math isn't even close.
The operators crushing it right now have elevated their chicken game. Smoked half chickens with Alabama white sauce. Chicken quarters with a coffee-ancho rub. Pulled smoked chicken tacos as a lunch special. One place in Beaumont told me their smoked chicken salad sandwich — which they initially added just to have a lighter option — is now their third-best seller and has the highest margin on the menu.
Why didn't more of us do this five years ago? Probably ego. Brisket is the prestige item. But prestige doesn't pay your Sysco bill.
Equipment Decisions That Actually Affect Your Bottom Line
I talk to operators all the time who are running 15-year-old smokers held together with replacement parts from three different manufacturers. And look, I get it — capital equipment purchases are scary when margins are tight. But there's a calculation most people don't do.
What's your actual cost per pound of finished product, including fuel, labor, and yield loss from inconsistent equipment?
An operator in Mobile was running an imported cabinet smoker — I won't name the brand but you can probably guess. Gas consumption was high because the insulation had degraded. Temperature recovery after door opens was slow, which meant longer cook times and more fuel. And parts? He waited nine weeks for a replacement igniter. Nine weeks of nursing a failing igniter with a propane torch.
He switched to a Southern Pride SC-300 last fall. His gas consumption dropped about 30%. His cook times shortened because recovery is faster. And when he needed a gasket replaced six months later, we had it to him in four days from domestic stock. (That's the advantage of USA manufacturing with parts actually warehoused in the country — not sitting on a container ship somewhere.)
I'm not saying everyone needs to run out and buy new equipment tomorrow. But if you're doing menu gymnastics to protect margins while your smoker is bleeding money through inefficiency, you might be solving the wrong problem first.
The Pricing Conversation
Menu engineering only gets you so far. At some point, you have to raise prices. The operators who do this badly announce it like an apology. The ones who do it well just... do it.
Your customers aren't stupid. They're buying groceries too. They know beef costs more than it did. What they don't want is to feel like you're trying to hide it from them with shrinking portions and unchanged prices. That breeds resentment.
I talked to a pitmaster in Shreveport who raised his brisket plate price $3 over the past 18 months. He lost maybe 5% of his brisket plate volume. His overall revenue on that item went up 12%. The customers who left weren't his core customers anyway — they were price-shopping and would have left eventually regardless.
The worst thing you can do is hold prices until you're desperate, then jack everything up 20% at once. Small, regular adjustments are easier for customers to absorb and easier for you to track in terms of what's actually price-sensitive versus what isn't.
What I'm Telling People to Focus On
If you called me tomorrow asking where to start, here's what I'd say:
First, actually calculate your current yields. Weigh your raw product, weigh your finished product, do the math. If you're below what your menu pricing assumed, that's your first problem to solve — either through better equipment, better technique, or adjusted menu prices.
Second, look at your protein mix. If 70% of your plates are going out with brisket, you've got a margin problem no matter how good your yields are. Diversifying into chicken, pork specials, and secondary beef cuts gives you room to breathe.
Third, evaluate your equipment honestly. Not emotionally. If your smoker is costing you yield, fuel, and labor through inconsistency, that's a leak in your bucket that menu changes can't fix. The folks at Southern Pride of Texas can walk you through what a production upgrade would actually look like for your volume — no obligation, just math.
And fourth — this one's free — stop apologizing for your prices. You're running a business, not a charity. Good BBQ costs money to produce. Charge what you need to charge to stay open, and focus your energy on making sure every plate that goes out justifies what you're asking.
The operators who'll still be here in 2025 are the ones treating this as a math problem, not an emotional crisis. Food costs are what they are. Your job is to build a menu and an operation that works within reality.
That's it. No magic formula. Just arithmetic and the willingness to actually do it.
Resources: Southern Pride of Texas | QSR Magazine | Restaurant Business Online
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Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels.
About the Author: Donna spent 18 years as a BBQ restaurant operator before becoming an independent equipment consultant for commercial food service operations.