Your menu and recipes, costed dish by dish.

Helm Shift keeps your menu and every recipe in one place. Enter what each ingredient costs you, once, and every dish carries its food cost against the price on your menu, so you can see your margin dish by dish instead of guessing at it. Built for independent restaurants.

Book your free setup call See pricing

The problem

A menu priced by feel costs you money.

In most independent kitchens, nobody has worked out what each dish actually costs to make. The price went on the menu the day it was printed, the salmon has gone up twice since, and the plate that looks busiest may be the one earning the least. Either way it lands on a margin that's already thin.

Helm Shift gives you an easy way to keep it honest. Build each recipe from your own ingredient list, enter what each ingredient costs you, and every dish shows its food cost and margin against its menu price. It's menu costing built for an owner-operator, not a regional chain.

What you get

One source of truth for your menu.

Your whole menu, organised, every dish and drink by category, with its price, its recipe and its cost on one screen.

Recipes built from your ingredients, add each ingredient once with what it costs you, then build any recipe from that list. A new ingredient can be added right inside the recipe.

Food cost on every plate, each dish shows what it costs you to make, in dollars and as a share of its price. A dish without a recipe shows a dash, never a fake margin.

Costs that follow your prices, change what an ingredient costs you and every dish that uses it carries the new cost.

A suggested price when cost runs high, when a dish's food cost sits above a healthy target, Helm Shift suggests a price. Add a market price if you want it weighed in. You always set the price.

A menu your staff can pull up, the current menu on their phone, with descriptions and prices and never your costs, plus a print-ready copy whenever the menu changes.

How it works

Honest costs, without the spreadsheet.

We load your menu

During onboarding we bring in your menu and the ingredients your recipes use, so it reflects your real kitchen from day one.

Price your ingredients

Enter what each ingredient costs you, in the unit you buy it: by the kilo, the bottle, the case. A name is enough to start; the price is what turns a recipe into a cost.

Build each recipe

Pick the ingredients a dish uses and how much of each. Its food cost and margin appear as soon as every line has a price.

Price with confidence

Where a dish's cost runs above a healthy target, Helm Shift suggests a price. It never changes a price for you; you decide.

Why independents pick it

The features chains pay thousands for.

No more guessing at margin

See which dishes carry their weight and which are quietly underpriced, before the next menu reprint.

Every recipe in one place

One home for every menu item and every recipe, so the kitchen runs from a single source, not scattered binders.

One login with scheduling

Menus, scheduling, and the AI assistant share one account, no extra tools, no extra bill.

FAQ

Menu and recipe costing, answered.

Where do the costs come from?

From you. Each ingredient carries the price you entered for it, and a dish's food cost is its recipe added up: each ingredient's quantity times its price. Nothing is pulled from a supplier or from your POS, so the number is as current as the prices you enter.

Is this inventory software?

No. Helm Shift is scheduling software with a menu and recipe book attached. It does not keep a count of what is on your shelves; it tells you what each dish costs you to make, from the ingredient prices you enter.

Will it tell me what to charge?

It suggests. When a dish's food cost runs above a healthy target, Helm Shift works out a price that would bring it back in line, and it can weigh a market price you enter for comparison. It never changes a price on its own; you set every price.

Can my staff see the menu?

Yes. Staff pull up the current menu on their phone, with descriptions and prices, and never your costs or margins. No app to install today; a dedicated mobile app is coming soon.

Do I need to replace my POS to use it?

No. Helm Shift works alongside whatever POS you use to ring sales, Toast, Square, Clover, Lightspeed. It manages your menus, recipes, scheduling, and operations around your POS, not the sales terminal itself.

See it on your kitchen.

Book a free 30-minute demo and we'll set up your menu with you, using your real dishes and your own ingredient prices.

Book your free setup call

Explore the platform