What a healthy comp rate looks like for a chef-led restaurant

For a chef-led, ingredient-forward concept, comp rate as a percentage of net sales typically lands between 1.5% and 3.5%. Below 1.5% you're likely under-comping (denying retention opportunities); above 4% you have a leak.

The bucket matters more than the headline number. Healthy comps are concentrated in three categories:

1. Service recovery (a guest had a real problem) — typically 60-70% of total comps for a chef-led group 2. Manager hospitality (table got recognized, regular got an amuse) — 20-25% 3. Pre-shift / training tastes (line cooks need to know the menu) — 5-10%

Unhealthy comps concentrate elsewhere: - One server owns >20% of the comp dollars across all tables → coverage / favoritism review - 30%+ of comps are "manager comp" with no service-issue note → process gap (or theft proxy) - Beverage comps as a percentage of total comps run higher than beverage's share of net sales → liquor program drift

A specific lever for chef-led groups: split your comp report by category (food / beer / liquor / wine) and compare each category's comp rate to its share of net sales. If wine is 12% of net but 28% of comps, you have a wine training problem, a wine theft problem, or a wine quality problem — pick the right conversation.

The Never 86'd Leak Detector surfaces the comp-abuse signal using two rules: above 1.5× the network's peer median, OR above 10% of an individual employee's own revenue with $200+ in absolute dollars. The second rule catches the case where only one person is comping — the peer median is zero, so the multiplier rule misses, but the absolute floor still flags.