[jaegrqualm]

There's a lot of possibilities, but one that springs to mind is that restaurants are quite wasteful compared to home cooks.

[Larrikin]

Well run restaurants waste as little food as possible, since that's all profit being thrown away.

[jrflowers]

Is this a theoretical restaurant or a real one? From what I understand real restaurants waste food by necessity because (for one example) mistakes are inevitable, customers are picky/mercurial, and any prepared dish that is deemed less than suitable for one customer for any reason can’t be sold to any customer.

Also equipment fails, vendors mess up, etc.

[tylerflick]

Having run a restaurant, this was not my experience.

[xandrius]

If saving 10c costs time worth more than that then it's not worth it. Ends there, really.

A friend used to work at a known cupcake chain in London and she literally threw out 30+ cupcakes a day. Whenever I was around, I'd try to convince her not to throw them but giving the box to some homeless or random passerby. Although that wasn't a common event given the boss.

So no, many places are stupidly wasteful, sometimes because of silly legislation.

[nitwit005]

You'd need perfect forecasting to not waste food. Order exactly enough food, and serve each customer exactly what they'd eat.