Are you a new restaurateur? Or are you planning to rebrand your current bistro? If yes, then you have landed on the right page!
Restaurant business has always been one of the highest-grossing endeavors and always will be. That being said, the statistics suggest that close to 30% of the restaurants shut down completely within a year of their commencement. And you definitely do not want to be one of them! So here is a list of questions that requires you to wear your thinking hat before finalizing your food menu. Because to succeed as a restaurateur, it takes a little more than finger-licking good food.
Menu is your best salesperson!
Realizing the fact that menu is your jack of spades is very important. It is that one collateral that will fetch you profit and fill your pockets. It is more than a document that will merely list appetizers, platters, and desserts. And even the fanciest of the restaurants face problems related to food costing, raw food expenses, profitability, and consistency. So cut the chase and answer these basic questions before launching your food menu.
- Is the pricing of the food done efficiently in a way that your profit is secured along with the reasonable cost of the dishes?
- Is your menu psychologically designed such that the customer reads the information that you want to convey?
- How is the architecture of the menu? Are the food items listed with a description such that it catches human attention in a very subtle way?
- Does the menu properly highlight your food specialties and justify your brand?
- Consumers love to read facts about the dishes and their nutritional value. Is it being conveyed effectively through your menu?
- Does your menu include the latest trends of eating, styles of food and new diets along with allergy considerations? For instance, providing an array of options for people on a keto diet or introducing gluten-free dishes in your menu will attract more customers.
- Will your menu has different options for regional specialties in various chains and how will it affect the pricing and sourcing of food?
Design your midget well!
Value of good design cannot be emphasized enough. Menu engineers and merchandisers invest an ample amount of time in designing the bone, structure, and strategy of the menu card. Even though the information and pricing of your menu is bang on, but if it is poorly designed, it is no good for you. Your design agency would not understand the latest food trends but make sure they prototype your menu splendidly.
- With nagging kids around and spicy gossips floating, customers are usually distracted while going through the menu and hence it becomes very important to highlight your signature dishes appropriately. But is the font too small or too big? Or with your dimly lit restaurant is it too hard to read the light-weighted font style? Make sure your menu goes with your ambiance along with being legible!
- Are there too many logos or infographics? Or maybe too less?
- Are the pictures placed efficiently so that they do not take away all the attention? In a world of Snapchat and Instagram, it is very important to place your not-so overly decorated pictures correctly.
- Is the use of icons (representation for vegetarian, non-vegetarian, spicy, gluten-free food) too cumbersome?
- What about the style of your menu? Is it designed stylishly along with being user-friendly and practical too? Menu card should not get faded or tattered very quickly, right?
- Are the dishes described using enticing adjectives that make the customer’s mouth watery and not totally unbelievable?
· A recent study shows that a lot of restaurant menus have more than 4000 words. A normal person reads about 200 words in a minute, which means it will take around 15/20 minutes for a person to read the entire menu. And ain’t nobody got time for that! So make sure your menu is informative but not over comprehensive.
If you are redesigning your menu consider answering the following questions:
- Make sure you take into consideration all the customer feedbacks while relaunching your menu. Did you undertake proper surveys, analyzed the data and took all the virtues from your customers?
- Does your new menu match up with the customer trends, restaurant’s new graphics and chef’s culinary skills?
- Did you take into account the costing of recipes while printing new menus?
The menu is actually a personification of your brand. The way it is dressed, how it would talk, walk and behave is precisely the way your menu will come out. Is it too loud? Is it too quirky? It will all depend on your menu’s design. With the ever-increasing competition in the restaurant business, it is very hard to stand out but make sure you put a bit of extra effort to ace up your game!
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