I counted 20 above-mentioned foods on my menu.

blizzardstormus 

One more thing. Emotionally, I know this is really hard to do, but slim down your menu of pre-prepared homemade items to save on labor and to aid holding. You mentioned that you don t serve every specialty every day, but slim down even more. Some customers will complain if  their item isn t on the menu all day every day, but you ve got to tell them that you d rather keep prices low by saving on labor costs than by cutting the quality of the food.

Along with your homemade chile and slimmed down selection of daily specials, you can offer a base menu of comfort items made to order, Not complicated stuff like PapaJoe8 thought I meant above, but a number of not a huge number of things like sandwich and burger plates using signature sides such as a homemade macaroni salad and garnishes that are unique to your restaurant.

And, at the risk of having some people run me off this forum with pitchforks and torches, I ll say that you are not a French restaurant with a French restaurant mark up. You are allowed to compromise at times where this doesn t impact the dining experience of your customers. I mean serve those real mashed potatoes. Most of us know and really appreciate the difference, but consider enhancing and enriching some restaurant supply soup mixes to save time and serving items like good quality pre-breaded popcorn shrimp that you heat instead of fry.