How to run a café pastry case: ordering, display and end-of-day waste

A pastry case is hard to get right. Order too little and it's empty by 10 a.m., with guests asking for the croissant they came for. Order too much and you're throwing out a tray of muffins every night.

Most of the fix is boring: order by day of the week from what actually sold, count what's left every night, and change the order every week. This guide covers the whole program, from picking the lineup to the end-of-day count, with a one-page sheet. If you bake everything in-house, our bakery production schedule covers the oven side.

Step 1: Choose the lineup and where it comes from

Start small. A case with eight items that sell out looks better than one with fifteen half-empty trays.

Many cafés mix them: croissants baked off from frozen, cakes and cookies bought in, one signature item made in-house.

For each item, ask the supplier for the ingredient list and allergens, how long it's good for, and whether it needs refrigeration for safety. Write the answers on the item's card in your vendor order guide.

Step 2: Order by day of the week

Sales aren't the same every day, so the order shouldn't be either. A Saturday can sell twice what a Tuesday does. Keep one order line per item per weekday.

The formula:

Order for a day = what that weekday usually sells − what you'll carry over + a small buffer

• What it usually sells: the average of the same weekday over the last four weeks, from your POS. Use units sold, not what you ordered, and look at when the item sold out: an item that sold out at 11 a.m. would have sold more.
• Carry over: only items that are still good the next day by your own standard and the supplier's guidance. Most croissants aren't. Cookies and loaf cakes often are.
• Buffer: one or two of your best seller, not of everything.

A worked example, with hypothetical numbers, for plain croissants on Tuesdays:

The average sold is 22.25. Weeks 1 and 3 sold out before lunch, so demand was a little higher. An order of 24 for Tuesdays, with no carry-over, is a reasonable next step. Check it again in four weeks.

Decide your sell-out time. Some cafés are happy to sell out of croissants by early afternoon; others want a full case until close. Neither is wrong, but write it down, because it decides the order. A café that wants a full case at 5 p.m. is choosing to throw some away.

Step 3: Receive it like any delivery

• Count it against the order, item by item, while the driver is still there.
• Check the condition: crushed, burnt, under-baked, or not what you ordered.
• Check items that need refrigeration are cold when they arrive.
• Write down any shorts or rejects and tell the supplier the same day.

Our receiving log and delivery checklist has a printable version.

Step 4: Fill the case safely

The Food Code has four rules that matter most for a pastry case:

• Protect what's on display. "FOOD on display shall be protected from contamination by the use of PACKAGING; counter, service line, or salad bar FOOD guards; display cases; or other effective means" (FDA Food Code 2022, §3-306.11). A closed case, a sneeze guard or wrapping. Not an open tray on the counter.
• No bare hands. Staff "may not contact exposed, READY-TO-EAT FOOD with their bare hands and shall use suitable UTENSILS such as deli tissue, spatulas, tongs, single-use gloves, or dispensing EQUIPMENT" (§3-301.11(B)). Tongs or tissue for every pastry, and a fresh pair of tongs when the old ones have been put down on the counter.
• Self-service needs utensils. If guests serve themselves, "CONSUMER self-service operations for READY-TO-EAT FOODS shall be provided with suitable UTENSILS or effective dispensing methods that protect the FOOD from contamination" (§3-306.13(B)).
• Keep cold items cold. Pastries that need refrigeration for safety, such as some cream- or custard-filled ones (ask your supplier which), go in a refrigerated case. The Food Code's cold-holding temperature is "At 5°C (41°F) or less" (§3-501.16(A)(2)).

Label every item. A small card with the name, the price and the major allergens. The Food Code says "The PERMIT HOLDER shall notify CONSUMERS by written notification of the presence of MAJOR FOOD ALLERGENS as an ingredient in unPACKAGED FOOD items that are served or sold to the CONSUMER" (§3-602.12(C)). Your state or county may have adopted this differently, so check, but a card is easy and guests read it. Keep it current when the supplier changes a recipe. Our allergen matrix template helps you track it.

Make it look full. Consolidate trays as they empty instead of leaving three half-empty ones, and wipe the glass at opening and after the rush.

Step 5: Decide what happens at close

Write the rule down before the first night, so the closer doesn't decide alone.

If you donate, ask a local food bank or food rescue group what they accept and when they collect.

Step 6: Count every night, review every week

The daily sheet is the whole system. It takes the closer five minutes.

Once a week, look at the four weeks for each weekday and change the order:

• Sold out before your target time three or four weeks in a row: order a little more.
• Left over three or four weeks in a row: order a little less.
• Still left over at a smaller order: it's not selling. Swap it for something else.

Change one or two items a week, so you can see what worked. Our food waste log shows how to turn waste numbers into decisions.

Your pastry case checklist

• [ ] A short lineup, with source, shelf life, allergens and refrigeration needs for each item
• [ ] An order for each item on each weekday, from four weeks of sales
• [ ] A written sell-out target time
• [ ] Every delivery counted and checked before the driver leaves
• [ ] A closed case or guard, tongs or tissue, and a refrigerated case for items that need it
• [ ] A card for each item with name, price and major allergens
• [ ] A written rule for what's left at close
• [ ] The daily sheet filled in every night
• [ ] A weekly order review, one or two changes at a time

Where Mays fits

• A forecast for what you sell. On the Forecast page, the Unit forecast card shows the Projected units for the items you pick, hour by hour, from your Square history. Pick only croissants and you see a croissant forecast for the day. It needs Square. See Sales forecast and labor budget.
• Sales come out of stock. Map each pastry on your POS to a recipe, and every night Mays takes what sold out of stock on hand. See POS mapping and automatic depletion.
• The end-of-day count as a task. Add a Waste log form to the closing checklist: each row has an item, a quantity and a reason such as Overproduction, and comes out of stock with its cost. On the web, the Waste Log shows each entry's cost and the total. See Logging waste.
• Proof the case was set up. A Photo task at opening shows the case before the first guest. See Task response types.
• A warm refrigerated case gets noticed. With a Govee thermometer in the case, a unit that stays out of range creates a task for whoever is on shift. See Temperature thresholds and alerts.

What Mays doesn't do: a par level is one number per item, not one per weekday, and the Unit forecast adds up all the items you pick rather than showing each one, so keep the order-by-weekday table yourself.

Sell out on purpose

A good pastry case isn't luck. It's a weekday order based on real sales, a case that's safe and labelled, and a five-minute count every night that tells you what to change.

Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Or book a walkthrough and we'll set up your waste log and unit forecast with you.