For a restaurant, the menu is the most powerful communication tool. It not only introduces guests to your eatery and displays your food offerings, but it also reinforces your brand concept and personality. But to do so effectively, it needs to be designed in a particular manner. A customer only looks at a menu for 109 seconds before deciding what to order. Thus, not only does the restaurant menu design impact the customer experience, but the restaurant’s profits hinge on it as well.
Unfortunately, this ‘most taken for granted simple booklet' has a lot of scope for errors that many restaurateurs tend to overlook.
It is always recommended to have a short and simple menu. Having a lengthy menu not only confuses the customers but also makes it difficult to maintain.
Following elements should be kept in mind in order to design the most powerful communication tool of your restaurant:
a) Menu Layout
While designing the menu, colors, designs, fonts, all the design aspects should be considered. The theme of your restaurant brand should reflect on your menu as well. Warm and earthy tones are known to stimulate hunger and are thus the most popular choice for menu colors. The font of the menu should be elegant and catchy and easily comprehensible. You can also choose to include the Special Items in boxes to attract customers’ attention.
b) Item Placing
The placing of the items on the menu also impacts their sales. People usually begin reading from the top right corner of the menu. This is where the high-profit items typically go. Another trick is to place the high-profit items next to a low profit, yet expensivedishes. For example, Mutton Raan is a costly dish that takes time to be prepared. Compared to this, a low cost yet high-profit Chicken Gravy dish is likely to be ordered by customers.
c) Menu Descriptions
The menu descriptions should be kept short and simple. Including Ethnic names of the ingredients in the menu, description lends a flavor to the dish and propels customers to order it. Spending extra effort to tastefully describe your higher-priced menu items will lead to more sales. A sentence or two if written well is enough to tempt the customers. Words like sizzling, flavorful, tangy, tasteful, and refined, exquisite should be used to stimulate the senses of your customers and create a craving for your food.However, ensure that the descriptions don’t contain jargons and words that are difficult to understand.
You can also consider adding high-quality images of your menu items along with the menu descriptions that display the color, texture, and versatility of a dish.Make sure to highlight the best-selling, higher priced or chef recommended items. It can attract customers easily and boost sales.
d) Menu Pricing
The Menu Pricing needs to be done carefully; keeping in mind the Menu Food Costs, while still being pocket-friendly and having the Value-for-Money for customers. Price of the Menu Items will also depend on your restaurant format; if it is a fine dining restaurant in a posh area, you can charge a higher Menu Price. Quick Service Restaurants typically have lower Food Costs and minor investments; thus, the Menu Price of their items are also on the lower side.
You should keep the surrounding market and competition in consideration while deciding the Menu Price. If your competition is serving the same dish with a similar service at a lower price, then your sales are going to see a drop.
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