Restaurant Propane Price Per Gallon
Restaurants use propane for ranges, fryers, broilers, steamers, water heaters, and increasingly for outdoor patio heating and pizza ovens. Nobody publishes a restaurant propane price. EIA does publish what the commercial sector as a whole pays, and that is the anchor this page uses.
How many gallons a restaurant burns
There is no published figure for what a typical restaurant uses, and the gap between a cafe and a high-volume fryer operation is too wide for one to mean much. Your own number is easy to work out. Every commercial gas appliance carries a rating plate giving its input in BTU per hour, and a gallon of propane holds 91,452 BTU (EIA). Divide the rating by 91,452 and you have gallons per hour at full fire:
| Rated input (BTU/hr) | Gallons / hr | Cost / hr |
|---|---|---|
| 30,000 | 0.33 | $0.54 |
| 40,000 | 0.44 | $0.72 |
| 80,000 | 0.87 | $1.44 |
| 100,000 | 1.09 | $1.80 |
| 150,000 | 1.64 | $2.69 |
Multiply by the hours each appliance actually fires, add the lines up, and you have the kitchen's draw. Full fire is the ceiling: a fryer holding temperature between batches or a range with burners idling burns less, so the real figure sits below it. Your dealer's delivery tickets over a year are the best record of all, and worth asking for before you negotiate.
Patio heating works the same way. Take, as an example, 8 heaters rated at 40,000 BTU per hour, run 4 hours an evening on 120 evenings a season. Each burns 0.44 gallons an hour at full output, so the patio uses about 1,680 gallons a season, on top of the kitchen. Change any input to match your own patio.
Why restaurants pay less than residential
A restaurant is quoted as a commercial account. The only published measure of what that is worth is sector-level: EIA puts US commercial propane 33.7% below residential per Btu for 2024, on state figures running from 3.2% to 62.6% below. That spread is too wide to read as a restaurant discount, so treat the reasons below as the levers in your own quote rather than a percentage to expect. The commercial vs residential page has the figure for every state.
- Volume: a kitchen that cooks on propane all year often buys more than a home, and dealers price larger annual volumes on better terms.
- Single-stop delivery economics: one larger tank at one stop, filled on a regular cycle, costs the dealer less per gallon to serve than many small residential fills.
- Signed contract: many commercial accounts sit on a supply agreement with a named pricing formula rather than the posted residential price.
- Predictable usage profile: a kitchen's gas use follows covers served, not the weather, which makes the dealer's inventory planning easier than for a heating customer.
Contract structures for restaurants
Three structures come up. Dealers do not publish what each costs relative to the others, so the useful thing to know is who carries the price risk in each, and what to ask.
Cost-plus (index-linked)
The restaurant pays a named benchmark, such as Mont Belvieu spot or a regional terminal rack price, plus a fixed differential. The buyer carries the price risk: if the benchmark rises, the next delivery does too. Ask which benchmark, which day's price, and what the differential is in cents per gallon, in writing. You can watch the benchmark yourself on the Mont Belvieu page.
Fixed-price annual
The restaurant locks a per-gallon price for the year on an estimated volume, and the dealer carries the price risk, which it prices in. Ask what happens if you use more or less than the estimate, and whether unused gallons are charged.
Capped
A hybrid: the price floats with the market but cannot rise above a ceiling, and the dealer charges for that protection. Ask for the cap fee as a separate figure so you can compare it with a straight fixed price.
Negotiation levers for restaurants
- Annual volume in writing: your delivery history, or the burner-rating calculation above, gives the dealer a number to price against.
- Tank ownership instead of lease: a leased tank's cost is recovered somewhere, in the per-gallon price or a rental fee. Ask the dealer to quote both ways and to name the lease charge. An owned tank also lets you change supplier.
- Automatic delivery instead of will-call: lets the dealer plan its routes. Ask whether the price changes with it.
- Several competing quotes: propane retail is a fragmented local business, and prices vary within a single market. Your state's EIA weekly average is the residential yardstick, and the commercial-sector figure for your state is the commercial one.
- Payment terms: ask whether paying on delivery rather than on account changes the price.
Outdoor heating
Patio heaters are the quickest way to add propane use to a restaurant, because they burn at full output for hours at a time. Run the calculation above on your own heater count and season before choosing between cylinder exchange and plumbing the patio from the main tank. Cylinder exchange costs far more per gallon than bulk delivery (see the camping propane page for that arithmetic), so the more gallons the patio burns, the stronger the case for a fixed gas line fed by the bulk tank.
Restaurant propane vs natural gas
Where natural gas is available, restaurants typically choose natural gas for the cooking line because the per-BTU cost is lower (see the propane vs natural gas page). Propane is chosen when natural gas is unavailable (rural locations, properties off the gas main), intermittently needed (outdoor patio heating, food trucks, temporary installations), or where the cost of bringing a gas main to the property outweighs the fuel saving. Ask the gas utility for a written connection quote before deciding.
Equipment efficiency
The burner rating tells you what an appliance can burn, not how much of that heat reaches the food. ENERGY STAR certifies commercial fryers, ovens, griddles and steamers against cooking-efficiency and idle-energy tests, and its product listings give the tested figures model by model. When replacing equipment, compare those tested figures rather than the rated input.
Related
- Commercial vs residential propane price per gallon
- Agricultural propane price per gallon
- Propane vs natural gas: price per BTU
- Camping propane price per gallon (small cylinders)
- Wholesale propane price per gallon
FAQ
What do restaurants pay for propane per gallon?
No one publishes a restaurant price. EIA's nearest figure is the US commercial-sector average: $1.642 per gallon for 2024, against $2.477 residential, 33.7% lower. It covers every commercial account, so your own quote can sit well either side of it.
How much propane does a restaurant use per year?
It depends on the equipment and the hours, and no published survey gives a typical figure. Add up the BTU-per-hour ratings on your appliances, divide by 91,452(BTU in a gallon of propane, per EIA) to get gallons per hour at full fire, and multiply by the hours each runs. Your dealer's delivery tickets are the actual record.
How many gallons per hour does a patio heater burn?
Its BTU-per-hour rating divided by 91,452. A heater rated at 40,000 BTU per hour burns about 0.44 gallons an hour at full output.
Should a restaurant lease or own the propane tank?
Ask the dealer to quote the gas price both ways and to name the lease charge; that is the only way to see what the lease costs you. Owning the tank also means you can take quotes from any supplier.