Total sales divided by the number of checks or covers — the typical amount a guest or party spends per visit.
Check Average (Average Check)
Total sales divided by the number of checks or covers — the typical amount a guest or party spends per visit.
Check average is total sales divided by the number of checks (per-party) or covers (per-guest) over a period. A $12,000 night across 300 covers is a $40 per-cover average. It is one of the simplest and most-tracked measures of how much each guest is spending.
Operators move check average through menu design, upselling, and coursing — a higher average on the same traffic flows straight to the top line.
- Per-check vs. per-cover: per-cover strips out party size and is the cleaner comparison across shifts.
- Levers: appetizers, add-ons, beverage attachment, and dessert all raise it; the POS reports it by server, daypart, and menu category.
Pairing check average with covers and product mix is the foundation of menu engineering, and every restaurant POS computes it.