Redesigning a restaurant menu is an awful lot of work, and it involves a heck of a lot more than just changing a few prices and menu items. Every chef and restaurant owner surely knows that redoing a menu often involves changing supplier orders, adjusting line cook stations and tasks, adjusting food prep quantities, informing waitstaff, and a whole lot more.
There are times when it’s necessary to update a menu, either to remove unpopular items or to focus more on core strengths, attract new clientele, or both. With all of the work involved in redesigning a menu (and its importance), printing out the actual menu itself should be quite an important consideration. Here are a few quick tips to keep in mind when redesigning your restaurant menu:
Now is a good time – if you haven’t already – to organise the menu into clear sections that immediately let patrons know what to expect on each page (or in each area, if it’s a single page) of the menu.
Some simple examples may include appetisers, main courses, desserts, coffee and non-alcoholic beverages, wines, etc. You could also get creative and organise by theme or flavour, which is often quite effective for niche restaurants that specialise in one particular food, like hamburgers or burritos, for example.
One little tip that helps readers is to keep sections clean and try not to have more than 6-7 items per section. Long lists have their place, yes, but try to give some variety, but not too much. Think of the paradox of choice: when people have too many things to choose from, they often don’t want any of them. Offer them a handful of appetising options, and they’ll often feel much more excited about their orders.
Now this should be something that involves your restaurant’s most iconic dishes that look great (take original photos), as well as dishes that bring people in. This makes sense, right? But you can also adapt your redesigned menu to incorporate popular dishes that are quite profitable, or conversely, highlight your loss leaders and pair them up with a profitable item.
A popular loss leader for many restaurants is appetisers, such as onion rings or chicken wings. Profits are slim or even negative, but when paired with a beer (usually high-profit) or hamburger and marketed as a package deal, you can bring in customers with appealing loss leaders while effectively marketing more profitable menu items.
If your restaurant already has an established brand, then stick with the branded colours and fonts. If your redesign is part of a broader marketing redesign, then coordinate the menu redesign with the overall marketing and branding strategy.
All other things held equal, try to stick with easy-to-read fonts large enough to be read by the majority of your patrons. When you can choose your colours, you should use shades like red and yellow, which psychologically spark appetite.
For specific items such as your popular dishes, a nice little description can be quite reassuring to patrons and help them cement their choice to order that. Don’t be too verbose and let your photos do most of the talking! Highlight specific ingredients or things that will spark hunger.
As with many marketing materials, you’re better off measuring twice and cutting once; or in the case of printing, designing and editing a few times and printing once before printing dozens of high-quality menus all containing the same error(s).
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