How Much Should You Spend on Restaurant Repairs and Maintenance?

How much should your restaurant spend on repairs and maintenance?
If you’re not sure, you’re not alone.

Most operators have no clear benchmark. Bills arrive one by one — a plumbing call here, a last-minute fryer repair there — and no one’s looking at the full picture. But without that big-picture view, you're not in control. You're just hoping nothing breaks.

So what are the average repair and maintenance costs for restaurants?

Industry data suggests a healthy range is 1% to 2% of your annual sales — including both planned maintenance and emergency fixes. Spend less than that, and you're probably deferring issues. Spend more, and you’re likely stuck in reactive mode, overpaying for last-minute repairs.

In this guide, we’ll break down:

• What’s included in R&M costs (and what’s not)
• How to benchmark your own spend
• How to spot when things are getting out of hand
• And how to cut costs without cutting corners

Let’s get into it.

‍

1. What Counts as R&M Spend (And What Doesn’t)

Before you compare your numbers, make sure you're counting the right things.

R&M spend means everything you pay to keep your equipment running and your kitchen compliant. That includes:

✅ Repairs — when something breaks and needs fixing
✅ Preventive maintenance — like hood cleaning, refrigeration checks, or HVAC tune-ups
✅ Service calls — even if it’s just for diagnostics
✅ Parts and labor — yes, even the $25 switch and the $300 emergency call
✅ Fire suppression, pest control, plumbing, electrical work — if it's BOH, it counts

But here’s what shouldn’t be included:

❌ New equipment purchases — that’s a capital expense, not maintenance
❌ Construction or renovations — same, not R&M

📌 Think of R&M as the cost of keeping your kitchen alive — not upgrading it.

If you include the wrong things in your calculation, your % of sales will look off — and your decisions will be too.

‍

2. The Benchmark: What’s “Normal” R&M Spend in the Restaurant Industry?

There’s no perfect number — but there is a clear range.

📊 Most restaurants spend between 1% and 2% of their annual sales on repairs and maintenance.

That’s the industry benchmark. And it’s more consistent than you think — across fast casual, QSR, and even full-service concepts.

So what does that mean in real terms?

• A restaurant doing $1 million/year should expect to spend $10,000 to $20,000/year on R&M.
• For a group doing $10 million/year across multiple locations? That’s $100K to $200K/year just to keep everything running.

Now here’s the problem: most teams don’t know how close they are to that range.

Why?

Because the costs are fragmented:

• Service calls go to one vendor.
• Preventive maintenance is on another contract.
• Parts get bought ad hoc, with no system.
• And invoices? Buried in someone’s inbox or ERP, never tracked by category.

📉 That’s how you end up either overspending without realizing it, or underspending and putting your kitchen at risk.

And both lead to the same thing: surprises, stress, and last-minute emergencies.

‍

3. Spending Under 1%? You Might Be Skipping What Matters.

At first glance, a low R&M spend looks like a win.

But if you’re spending less than 1% of revenue on repairs and maintenance, chances are you’re not just saving — you’re skipping.

Here’s what that usually means:

• 🔧 Preventive maintenance isn’t getting done.
  No hood cleanings. No refrigeration tune-ups. No grease trap servicing. The kind of stuff that doesn’t scream for attention — until it fails.
• 🧾 No one’s tracking minor issues.
  That leaky faucet or the weird noise from the walk-in? They’re “not that bad”… until they are.
• 🕒 Repairs get deferred or ignored.
  Teams wait until something breaks completely before calling for help — which often turns a $200 fix into a $2,000 problem.
• 📋 There’s no system.
  No calendar, no visibility, no standard process across locations. So nothing gets planned — everything is a reaction.

🙈 Low spend doesn’t always mean low cost.

In reality, it often means you’re building up operational debt — silent issues stacking up behind the scenes, ready to hit at the worst possible time.

The fix?
→ Start by mapping out what you’re not spending on.
→ Then put a basic maintenance plan in place — even a simple checklist can make a difference.

‍

4. Spending Over 2%? You’re Probably in Firefighting Mode.

If your repair and maintenance costs are climbing past 2% of revenue, it’s a red flag.

You’re not over-investing.
You’re paying the price of chaos.

Here’s what that usually looks like in the field:

• 🚨 Emergencies, all the time.
  The fryer goes down mid-service. The walk-in stops cooling over the weekend. Everything feels urgent — because nothing was planned.
• 💸 Service calls at premium rates.
  You’re calling whoever’s available, not who’s best — and you’re paying rush fees, after-hours rates, and inflated invoices.
• 🔁 Fixing the same issues again and again.
  Because the root cause wasn’t addressed, or because there’s no system to track past work.
• 📂 No consolidated oversight.
  Each location handles repairs differently. Invoices are scattered. Spend is opaque. No one sees the full picture until the budget’s already blown.

🔥 High spend isn’t a maintenance strategy.
It’s a symptom of no strategy.

You’re reacting instead of managing. And it’s costing you — not just in dollars, but in stress, downtime, and team frustration.

‍

5. How to Stay in the 1–2% Sweet Spot

Spending between 1% and 2% of revenue on repairs and maintenance isn’t magic.
It’s the result of structure, discipline, and visibility.

Here’s how top-performing ops teams stay in control 👇

🧰 Centralize Your Maintenance Process

Stop letting every location “figure it out.”
Build one system for managing all R&M:

• One place to report issues
• One source to track vendors and work orders
• One dashboard for costs

That alone can cut waste, duplicate work, and confusion.

🔧 Build a Preventive Maintenance Program

Most high-cost repairs were avoidable.
Regular checkups on your key equipment — especially HVAC, refrigeration, hood systems — will save you thousands.

Plan it. Track it. Stick to it.

🧾 Track Every Dollar

Don’t wait until year-end to add up the invoices.
Log every repair and service call as it happens.
Break it down by:

• Site
• Equipment type
• Vendor
• Emergency vs. planned

You’ll quickly see where the money’s going — and where to course-correct.

📊 Analyze, Then Act

Once you have the data, use it:

• Are certain sites spending way more?
• Are the same items breaking down repeatedly?
• Are you over-relying on emergency vendors?

Turn that insight into action: retrain teams, adjust your vendor list, or replace underperforming equipment.

✅ Set the Benchmark and Review It

Define your 1–2% range as a real KPI.
Track it monthly.
Review it quarterly.
Talk about it in ops meetings.

When it’s visible, it gets managed.

‍

You don’t need to cut corners to stay in the 1–2% range.
You just need to cut out the chaos.

‍

6. Averages Don’t Tell the Whole Story

Let’s be real: no two restaurants are the same.
So even if 1–2% is the industry benchmark, your ideal number might be higher or lower — and that’s fine.

The goal isn’t to match an average.
It’s to understand why you’re above or below it.

📍 Location Matters

Urban restaurants with older infrastructure?
They’ll see higher plumbing and HVAC costs.

New builds in suburban areas?
You might go months without a single service call.

Compare apples to apples — not to national statistics.

🍳 Concept Matters

A fine-dining kitchen running gas burners, sous-vide, and combi ovens has very different needs than a fast-casual spot with a flattop and a fryer.
Different usage. Different failure points. Different spend.

Your R&M budget should reflect the complexity of your operation.

🏗️ Age of Equipment Matters

If your equipment is older than 7–10 years, expect higher maintenance costs.
And if you haven’t tracked those costs, you might be repairing something that’s past the point of return.

Sometimes “too expensive to fix” is only obvious in hindsight — unless you're tracking the data.

⚙️ Vendor Strategy Matters

Paying a premium for last-minute repairs?
Using five different vendors with no consistency?
That’s a recipe for overspending.

Centralizing vendors and scheduling proactively can cut your spend without cutting quality.

🎯 What to Do Instead

Forget “what’s normal.”
Focus on:

• What you're spending
• Why you're spending it
• Whether it’s worth it

That’s how smart ops teams manage maintenance.

‍

7. How to Reduce R&M Costs Without Risking the Kitchen

Cutting maintenance spend sounds smart — until it backfires.
Skip too much, and things break.
Delay repairs, and costs multiply.
Go cheap, and you often pay twice.

So how do you reduce costs without putting your kitchen at risk?

Here’s what works:

✅ Shift from reactive to preventive

Don’t wait for things to break.
Plan your maintenance on a schedule — especially for high-risk assets like HVAC, walk-ins, and fryers.

Preventive maintenance costs less than emergency repairs.
And it catches issues before they become disasters.

✅ Track every repair, by asset

Create a history.
Know what you’ve spent — and where.

Which fryer breaks every month?
Which walk-in eats 80% of your service budget?

Tracking lets you identify patterns, compare vendors, and stop the silent money leaks.

✅ Standardize your vendors

Using five different techs for the same issue across locations?
You’re losing on pricing, coordination, and quality.

Streamline to a trusted network.
Negotiate rates.
Make it easy for your teams to request service — without reinventing the wheel every time.

✅ Make better repair-vs-replace decisions

A $1,500 repair might not make sense on a $2,000 asset that’s 10 years old.

But you can’t make smart calls without data.
Track age, frequency of failure, and total spend per equipment.

When you know the lifecycle, you control the costs.

✅ Get proactive with budgets

Once you know your numbers, you can plan.

→ Set realistic monthly targets
→ Allocate CAPEX for upcoming replacements
→ Flag risk zones before they blow up the budget

That’s how teams move from firefighting to forecasting.

💡 Pro tip
The goal isn’t just to spend less.
It’s to spend smart — with visibility, consistency, and control.

📌 And that’s exactly what Boh helps with.
From tracking every asset to scheduling preventive maintenance, Boh gives you the tools to reduce R&M spend — without putting your kitchen at risk.

‍

Conclusion

Most restaurant operators are flying blind when it comes to repairs and maintenance.
Not because they’re careless — but because the system isn’t set up to help them succeed.

R&M costs are scattered across invoices, buried in different budgets, handled by too many vendors, and almost never analyzed at the asset level.
So teams stay reactive.
Problems pile up.
And costs spike without warning.

But here’s the upside:
Once you get visibility and structure, everything changes.

✅ You start spotting patterns early.
✅ You plan instead of react.
✅ You get fewer surprises, more control, and better decisions.

Most importantly: you protect your margins, your team’s time, and your guests’ experience.

👀 Quick R&M Health Check — Where Do You Stand?

Take 2 minutes. How many of these can you check off?

• I know how much I spend on R&M each month
• I track maintenance costs by equipment across locations
• I have a clear preventive maintenance schedule
• I use the same trusted vendors for recurring issues
• I review repair-vs-replace decisions with data
• I have a central system for all my R&M tracking

👉 4 or more checked? You’re ahead of the curve.
👉 Less than 4? You’re not alone — but your R&M is costing you more than it should.

‍

📌 Want to take control of your repair & maintenance costs?
That’s exactly what Boh was built for.
From preventive maintenance to full asset tracking, we help restaurant groups stop reacting and start managing.

👉 Book your free kitchen assessment — and get a plan built around your actual operations.

‍

FAQ

What percentage of sales should restaurants spend on R&M?
Typically between 1% and 2%, depending on the concept and maintenance strategy.

Does preventive maintenance really lower costs?
Yes. Catching problems early prevents bigger, more expensive failures.

What’s the biggest R&M cost driver?
Emergency breakdowns—especially refrigeration and HVAC failures during service hours.

Should I include staff time in R&M spend?
Only if you're dedicating salaried maintenance staff. Otherwise, focus on external vendor costs.

How do multi-unit groups optimize R&M spend?
They centralize vendors, standardize preventive schedules, and track issues across locations.

Is preventive maintenance really worth it?
Yes — and it’s often the single most effective way to reduce long-term R&M costs. Regular checkups prevent small issues from becoming expensive emergencies, reduce downtime, and extend the life of your equipment.

‍