Guidelines for Creating a Successful Restaurant
Menu
Your Menu Is Your Product
Before a customer ever sees the food they ordered on their plate in front of them, they have taken the time to read your menu. They have most likely created an image in their heads (and probably a craving on their taste buds) for the items your restaurant offers. It is imperative that your menu items include tantalizing descriptions and appetizing lists of ingredients.
Make It Sound GOOD!
For example, it is much more enticing to order "Tenderloin medallions sautéed with Marsala wine, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, shallots and bacon" than it is to simply have "Beef Tenderloin" on your menu. You want to make your guest's mouths water as they read.
"Freshly Brewed Coffee" makes even a cup of coffee sound delicious and appealing. "Wood Fire Oven Baked Pizza" projects a rustic, old fashioned recipe feel to a common and simple dish. Follow it with descriptions such as "pizzas are hand crafted & served hot out of our wood burning oven" and you'll have your guests mouths watering in no time. Now it's time to offer them an icy cold premium beer! See how easy it is to upsell anything just by making it sound good!
Distribute Your Menu Outside the Restaurant
As mentioned above, your menu is your product. A well designed (and readable!) carry-out version of your menu for patrons to take with them, receive in the mail, download, read in the phone book or find on restaurant review websites can enable you to distribute your product to unlimited recipients, including individuals and businesses alike. And typically this is a very inexpensive if not free method for making a potentially huge impact. Popular social websites such as Facebook and Twitter can also increase exposure and visibility of your menu. Just be sure to keep these and any other websites or blogs up to date with your most current information, including prices.
If appropriate, post your menu outside your restaurant so that passers-by can see what you offer even after business hours. If you are in an area heavily populated with restaurants, see what your competitors are doing. If they are posting menus for the public to see, you might want to consider doing the same.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Meatballs
Graphics or photos of your food, when appropriate, are also a great way to stimulate the appetite of your customers. And for some unknown reason, gooey melted cheese almost always sells itself on any hot entrée. If you do decide to put photographs or graphic images on your menu, make sure they are approriate to your cuisine, and are a good fit with the image you are creating. Also, if photographs are of dishes you serve, be sure that the menu items being served to the table match the photographs in the menu!
Consistency is Paramount
No matter how you design your menu or present your food, the most important standard to maintain is consistency. When a regular guest visits your restaurant, they want to be confident knowing that the menu, prices and food will be consistent from visit to visit. The paint and carpet may get updated, the dishes, glassware, tables and chairs may change over time. But any modifications you wish to make to either the menu, the food or the prices should always occur gradually and subtly. Abrupt price increases, a slew of new and different menu items, and rearranging items on your menu all work to alienate and confuse a guest who visits your establishment frequently, not to mention your service personnel. And it is these guests who are the frequent visitors that can stimulate more business, or conversely deter it, depending on how efficiently and fairly you serve them.
"I judge a restaurant by the bread and by the coffee"
~ Burt Lancaster
Photos Source: www.morguefile.com
© 2011 Andrew Brent