Chef Joe's at Roadhouse · Delta Roadhouse
Every price, what each plate costs to make, and exactly what the Roadhouse receives — under both readings of “a dollar from each plate,” which is still the one term nobody has written down.
3.8-supply-unit.
Costs change there and this page is regenerated from them — it has no way to write back,
which is deliberate: it is the page that gets shared.price, what it costs, what each side gets
The fee lands on an order, not on a bottled drink that rides along with one. The ice cream is the exception — cones and shakes carry the $1.00 themselves, by Joe’s own decision rather than any term that was asked for. Switch the control above to each item and the fee appears on everything.
Every ingredient behind these numbers carries a source and a date. Where a price is a published survey rather than an invoice or a supplier quote, the engine holds it as a band rather than a point — butter, for instance, is the USDA’s advertised average for Colorado’s region this month, not a Sam’s Club receipt.
| Plate | Price | Food | To Roadhouse | Joe keeps | Food % |
|---|
the one term still unwritten
“A dollar from each plate” reads two ways, and the gap is wider than any cost decision in the business. A burger, fries and a drink is one order and three items.
| Orders a service | Per order | Per item | Difference | Per order, of sales | Per item, of sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | $57 | $84 | +$27 | 6.1% | 9% |
| 65 | $74 | $109 | +$34 | 6.1% | 9% |
| 75 | $86 | $125 | +$40 | 6.1% | 9% |
| 90 | $103 | $150 | +$48 | 6.1% | 9% |
Both readings are defensible, which is why it needs settling rather than assuming. Percentage rent in food service typically runs 6–10% of gross sales. At 75 orders, per-order lands at 6.1% — inside that range — and it only lands there because the ice cream carries the fee too. Without that it would be 5.4%, below the conventional floor. Per-item lands at 9% — the top of it.
The engine has read it as per order since the beginning, because the words were “a dollar from each plate” and a plate has meant an order throughout. That reading has never been confirmed by anyone at the Roadhouse.
And there is a third reading nobody has raised. The catering term
sheet is unsigned and says the Roadhouse will “likely NOT charge for facility usage for
2026.” facility_fee_2026 is recorded as 0.
So the live range is $0, $86, or $125 a service. That is a sentence in an unsigned document deciding the largest recurring number between the two businesses.
75 orders · average contribution $8.54 a unit, across what actually sells
Contribution is what a plate leaves after its food and its share of the Roadhouse fee. It is the number that decides what belongs on a board, not food cost percentage — a 4% item that nobody buys earns nothing.
| Item | Sold | Keeps each | Total | Of profit | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smash Burger, single | 23 | $11.65 | $262 | 24.5% | star |
| Smash Burger, double | 14 | $18.26 | $246 | 23% | star |
| The Weeknight, single smash plus friesfryer | 15 | $16.01 | $240 | 22.4% | star |
| Tallow Fries, regularfryer | 17 | $7.61 | $126 | 11.7% | plowhorse |
| Tallow Fries, largefryer | 8 | $10.45 | $78 | 7.3% | puzzle |
| Bottled Soda | 34 | $1.34 | $45 | 4.2% | plowhorse |
| Milkshake, 16 oz | 4 | $7.31 | $27 | 2.6% | dog |
| Ice Cream Cone, single scoop | 5 | $4.52 | $20 | 1.9% | dog |
| Ice Cream Cone, waffle | 2 | $6.19 | $14 | 1.3% | dog |
| Bottled Water | 6 | $1.77 | $11 | 1% | dog |
| THE SMOKEfryer | 0 | $26.07 | $0 | 0% | not launched |
| Gochujang Chicken Salad | 0 | $11.70 | $0 | 0% | not launched |
| Bang Bang Chickenfryer | 0 | $13.03 | $0 | 0% | not launched |
| Add garlic aioli | 0 | $0.87 | $0 | 0% | not launched |
| Add a slice of cheese | 0 | $0.89 | $0 | 0% | not launched |
| Add caramelised onion | 0 | $0.92 | $0 | 0% | not launched |
| Add a Wagyu patty | 0 | $6.77 | $0 | 0% | not launched |
| Add shaved pecorino | 0 | $1.36 | $0 | 0% | not launched |
reasoning, risk, and the fallback if it does not work
Why it works: an add-on rides on an order that has already paid the $1.00 Roadhouse fee, so the upcharge carries none of it. Nothing else on the menu has that property.
These are now live, costed, priced items in the engine, built from stock already carried and prep already done — none adds a supplier, a batch or a step.
One of them is not a judgement call. A single is $15 and a double is $23, so the menu already prices this exact patty at $8.00. Put the add-on below that and a single plus a patty becomes a cheaper double — at $3 that is a $5 leak on the second-biggest earner on the board. At $8.00 both routes cost the guest the same and there is nothing to game. The condiments are free of that problem, which is why they sit at a dollar.
| Add-on | Costs | Price | Keeps | Food % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Add caramelised onion | $0.083 | $1.00 | $0.92 | 8% |
| Add a slice of cheese | $0.115 | $1.00 | $0.89 | 11% |
| Add garlic aioli | $0.133 | $1.00 | $0.87 | 13% |
| Add shaved pecorino | $0.135 | $1.50 | $1.36 | 9% |
| Add a Wagyu patty | $1.226 | $8.00 | $6.77 | 15% |
These prices are suggested and pending your say-so — they are the one set of numbers on this page I chose rather than recorded.
The benefit: at 51 burgers a service, one condiment add-on on a quarter of them is about $195 a month. One added patty on a twentieth of them is another $293. No new supplier, no new equipment, no change to the board prices.
What breaks it: one person at a window cannot upsell verbally while cooking. If add-ons live only in the order-taking, they will not sell.
The workaround: put them on the board as a printed list beside the burgers, so they sell themselves while your hands are busy. If take-up is still under 10% after two weeks, fold the best one into a named specialty instead — a menu item sells where an upsell does not.
Why it works: the double keeps $18.26 against $11.65 — about $6.61 more for one extra scoop and a slice of cheese. It is the highest-contribution item and it sells least of the three.
The benefit: costs nothing. Board position, naming and order of listing do the work.
What breaks it: $23 is a hard number to say yes to in this market, and pushing it can make the single look like the sensible choice rather than the cheap one.
The workaround: if the double stalls, do not discount it — introduce a third tier above it. A triple at $28–30 costs one more scoop and makes $23 read as the middle option rather than the expensive one.
Why it matters: the salad and the Bang Bang are priced, active, and forecast at zero. Each would keep more than a regular fries order. An item nobody orders still costs prep, inventory and board space.
The bottleneck: Bang Bang is fried. It competes for the one vat with fries, which ride on most orders. The salad does not touch the fryer at all.
The move: if you keep one, keep the salad — same contribution, no throughput cost, and it travels for catering where fries never will. If both stay, give them a real share in the engine so they appear in prep and ordering; leaving them at zero means you will not have the ingredients when someone asks.
The constraint: 39 fried portions a service already, one every 6 minutes, from one vat under a hood sized for one fryer. Every new fried item competes with fries.
The benefit: a specialty burger costs nothing in throughput and carries the same fee-free upcharge as an add-on — but it reads as a menu item, which sells where an upsell does not.
What breaks it: every extra build is another thing to hold in your head on a busy line, and specials that need their own prep die first when a service runs long.
The workaround: build specials only from stock already carried and prep already done. One new sauce or one new cheese, never a new sub-recipe. If a special needs its own prep batch, it is a menu change, not a special.
Why: catering is becoming the more frequent of the two, and fries are both the throughput ceiling and the item that travels worst.
The benefit: off-site, burgers and the chicken salad scale in a way fries never will. A catering menu without fries removes the fryer from the constraint list entirely and lets volume rise past what the courtyard can serve.
The bottleneck: two menus is two prep lists, two order sheets and two sets of pack-downs for one person.
The workaround: make the catering menu a strict subset of the courtyard menu minus the fryer, not a separate menu. Same recipes, same suppliers, same prep — fewer items. Nothing new to learn and nothing extra to buy.
what switching these on actually costs
Three sauces are already built, costed and sitting in the prep file. Two of them earn nothing today, because the only items that used them are switched off or forecast at zero. Turning a sauce on is the cheapest menu change available — the recipe, the yield and the shelf life are already written down.
| Sauce | Per fl oz | Batch | Keeps | Earning today |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bang bang sauce | $0.1240 | 52 fl oz | 7 d | nothing |
| Garlic aioli | $0.1333 | 34 fl oz | 7 d | nothing |
| Gochujang dressing | $0.1791 | 44 fl oz | 7 d | nothing |
The benefit: a sauce is the highest-leverage thing on this list. Garlic aioli costs $0.133 a serve against a $2–3 upcharge, and it is the difference between “a burger” and “a burger you have to describe to someone.” It also gives a plain smash burger a second version without a second build.
What breaks it: every open sauce is a 7-day clock and a labelled container in a cold box that is already carrying prep for four burgers and the fries. Sauces do not fail on cost, they fail on date labels and space. Three open squeeze bottles for an item that sells twice a night is waste dressed up as choice.
The workaround: one sauce at a time, for two weeks, and only a sauce whose batch is already being made for something else. If a new sauce does not clear its batch inside its shelf life twice running, it comes off — that is a measurable test, not a judgement call.
Smoked half-pound blend, basted in garlic butter to order, with pecorino-and-seasoning fries and a drink.
It is switched on, costed at $7.930, priced at $35.00, and deliberately forecast at zero. At that price it runs 22.7% food cost and keeps $26.07 after the fee — more than any other plate. Note what that percentage means: the smash burgers run 14–16%, so $35 is the least aggressive markup on the menu, not the most. Matching the double’s 16% would price it at $50.
Burger, fries and drink on one order, so it carries one $1.00 Roadhouse fee rather than three. Under the per-item reading that bundling is worth $2.00 a plate.
The half pound is already there. The portion is 6 oz cooked, which takes 10 oz of raw blend — 0.625 lb. Menu weights are conventionally stated pre-cooked, so “half pound” is accurate as built and slightly understated. Going to a full 8 oz served costs $1.41 more a plate and drops the batch from 32 to 24, which breaks the rule below.
Cap it at 32, not 35. One batch is 20 lb of blend, 8 hours in the smoker, and exactly 32 portions. Capping a service at the batch means one smoke, one service, no remainder and nothing left on a 2-day clock. 35 and 35 a day is 2.19 batches — a part-batch every day, which is where waste comes from. 32 and 32 is exactly two.
The blocker is regulatory, not culinary. Its smoking blend is gated in the engine: the smoke-to-chill-to-sear process needs written Delta County Health sign-off before it can be served to anybody. Putting the item back on the board does not lift that, and no amount of pricing work will.
Why its share is held at zero on purpose. A share here would put pounds of smoking blend on an order sheet and eight hours of offsite smoker time on a prep list, for a process that is not approved. The share goes in the day the sign-off is in hand.
The second bottleneck, once it clears. THE SMOKE carries fries, so it lands on the fryer — already the binding constraint at 39 portions a service. It is also an offsite, 8-hour, hold-2-days prep, which makes it the only item on the menu that cannot be recovered mid-service if it runs out.
How to open it. Not at 32 and 32. Earn the second batch:
| Phase | Batches a day | Plates a day | Sells | Keeps | When |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 32 | $1120 | $834 | OPEN HERE. One batch a day, sold across both services until gone. Not 32 at lunch and 32 at dinner. |
| 2 | 2 | 64 | $2240 | $1668 | Move here only after phase 1 sells out TWICE RUNNING. |
The exposure, in one number. A batch costs $135 of blend before anything else and lasts 2 days. Smoke two batches for a day that only half turns up and that is roughly $135 of the most perishable, most expensive prep on the menu to move or lose. Start at one batch a day and raise it after it sells out twice, rather than opening at 32 and 32.
The drink in the bundle is a Roadhouse question, not a costing one. A drink inside a $35 plate is a beverage sale that does not happen at their bar. That is the one thing on this page most likely to need their yes before it goes on a board.
The workaround: run it as a named limited item in fixed counts rather than a standing menu item — smoke a set number, sell them until they are gone, and the prep, the fryer load and the shelf life are all bounded in advance. That also makes it the reason to come on a specific night, which a permanent item never is.
the one place taking nothing is the right trade
ANY menu item containing alcohol is a Delta Roadhouse sale at 100%. Vivere Colorado LLC takes no share of an alcohol sale, does not price it, does not ring it and does not invoice a customer for it.
Why zero rather than a share. The Roadhouse holds the liquor licence and Vivere does not. Two separate risks follow from that, and taking 0% avoids both: (1) an unlicensed party that invoices or rings an alcohol sale can be treated as SELLING alcohol, and (2) sharing the profit of an alcohol sale can look like an undisclosed financial interest in the licence, because Colorado defines an owner partly as whoever has the opportunity to gain profit from the operation.
Verification. NOT VERIFIED AT SOURCE. The above reflects Colorado Liquor Rules (1 CCR 203-2) and DOR Bulletin 18-05 as described in search results on 6 Sep 2026; the state site returned 403 and the bulletin text was NOT read directly. Treat as the reason to ask their liquor attorney, not as legal advice. The chosen structure is the conservative one either way, so the answer does not change the plan.
How it runs: The trailer supplies a shake base as an ingredient and invoices it like any other wholesale line. The Roadhouse pours, serves in their glassware, rings it on their POS and keeps the whole ticket.
| Route | Price | Cost | Joe keeps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sell the 16 oz shake yourself | $9.75 | $1.441 | $7.31 |
| Supply 5 oz of ice cream at $1.50, bar sells the spiked one | $1.50 | $0.484 | $1.02 |
| Do nothing — the bar builds its own | — | — | $0.00 |
A correction worth recording. The first pass modelled this as a blended shake base at $4.00. Put through a bar's own arithmetic that is a 43% cost on a $14 drink — roughly double what a bar runs, and it would have been refused. The workable unit is ice cream by the serving: 5 fl oz at $1.50 leaves the bar at 25% and still keeps $1.02 a serving on the supply line, which is 68% of it.
The one real risk is cannibalisation. A spiked shake at the bar competes with the $9.75 shake at the window, and the window keeps $7.31 against $1.02 on a serving. Every spiked drink that replaces a plain shake costs about $6.29 — which is why the floor on their menu price matters more than the transfer price does.
what they see, and what each one is worth here
Sent to them as a separate card at https://roadhouse-courtyard.pages.dev/drinks, with a calculator they fill in themselves. None of these has been built, costed or tested — they are suggestions, and the only hard column is the last one.
| Drink | They pour | We scoop | Anything new? |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Ute Street Mudslide | Vodka, coffee liqueur, Irish cream | Vanilla, whole milk, chocolate syrup, whipped cream | nothing |
| Bourbon Butterscotch | Bourbon, butterscotch schnapps | Vanilla, whole milk, whipped cream | butterscotch sauce for the dessert side, if you want it drizzled |
| Roadhouse Root Beer Float | Vanilla vodka, or bourbon for the grown-up version | Vanilla, root beer from your gun | nothing |
| Black Canyon Grasshopper | Crème de menthe, crème de cacao | Vanilla, whole milk, chocolate syrup | nothing |
| Affogato, Spikedpremium | Amaretto, hazelnut or coffee liqueur | Two scoops vanilla, hot espresso poured at the table | espresso — this one lives or dies on whether you have a machine |
| Salted Caramel White Russianpremium | Vodka, coffee liqueur | Vanilla, salted caramel, flaked salt | salted caramel sauce |
| Cherry Amaretto Float | Amaretto | Vanilla, maraschino cherries, soda from the gun | nothing |
| Mimi's Boozy Sundaepremium | A liqueur float — Irish cream, amaretto or coffee, poured over | Whatever is in the case that week, built as a sundae | nothing |
at $1.50 a serving
| Drinks a service | Cost | Invoiced | Keeps a service | A month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | $2.42 | $7.50 | $5.08 | $86 |
| 10 | $4.84 | $15.00 | $10.16 | $173 |
| 20 | $9.68 | $30.00 | $20.32 | $345 |
It is a small line, and that is the point. Ten a night is about $173 a month on drinks that cannot legally be sold from the window at any price. It will never be a big number; it is close to free, it costs no fryer time, no prep and no window minutes, and it puts Mimi’s product in front of people who came for a drink rather than a dessert.
The workaround: agree a floor on the bar’s price. If the spiked version is priced as the premium drink it is rather than a dollar or two over the plain one, it draws a different customer instead of moving the same one. That is a conversation to have before the first one is poured, not after.
three of these are Joe’s, two are shared