I watch random food shows like “Food Paradise” on Travel channel, and “Triple D” by the Mayor of FlavorTown himself. When they speak to the owner/cook, they say things like “oh we cook 400 lbs of BBQ a day” or “about 3000 pancakes each day” or whatever. How do they know that’s what they will use? Seems like a guessing game.
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It’s definitely a guessing game, but it also comes from experience. Something that needs lots of prep time like BBQ, they’ll prep a certain amount for each day, saying “Well, last week we sold about 400 pounds on weekdays and 600 pounds on weekends, so let’s do that again. Oh, but it’s a holiday this weekend, so we might have some more customers than usual, let’s do 700.” Ideally, they’ll sell that amount or very close to it each day and have minimal waste (and depending on the product, leftovers can still be sold, or used in other dishes). Sometimes they guess low and have to tell customers “Sorry, we’ve run out of X today.” The more experience a restaurant gets, the better their guesses will end up being, and the less chance of guessing low (bad for the customers, which is also bad for the restaurant) or having excessive waste (bad for the restaurant).
Something like pancakes are easier, because they’ll make a big batch of pancake batter in the morning. And even if they happen to run out… it’s pancake batter, and you can whip up a fresh batch in a couple of minutes. And the nice thing about batter is that most of the ingredients can be ordered in bulk and left on the shelf for weeks or months if needed (flour, sugar, baking powder, oil, salt), and the remaining ingredients (milk and eggs) can be ordered as needed, and will be used for other items on the menu as well. It’ll be hard to run out of them, and they can be used over a couple of days until they run out and the next order starts to be used.
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