How to create a restaurant menu — A complete guide on menu building and writing

A restaurant menu might be just a page or two. But, a successful restaurant menu involves a lot of behind-the-scenes efforts. Before they make their appearance on the menu card, dishes are tasted and tested; prices are decided based on maximum profit; and each word is meticulously chosen to appeal to the customer. Even factors like the font used and the weight of the paper must be given intricate attention to make them impactful elements of the menu card. When all efforts are planned and executed, the restaurant menu transforms into a silent seller making your restaurant business extremely profitable.

RIGHT WORDS ON THE MENU CAN INCREASE SALES BY UPTO 27%

Designing a perfect menu is like an engineering process. Apart from the creative element, there are certain calculated and scientific procedures that must be followed to create a mesmerizing culinary description, which is available for diners to immerse themselves in.

While designing a menu is crucial to engage the foot traffic that visits the restaurant, designing a restaurant website is yet another aspect that no restaurant must oversee, especially during such pandemic times. Use a restaurant website builder that is DIY, template-based and yet fully customizable. Make use of a food web constructor that is affordable to create a restaurant website, permits you to receive unlimited online food orders and direct, secure payments from the customers. Ensure that the website builder does not levy any commission per order or charges any hidden costs.

STEP 1: MENU ENGINEERING PRINCIPLE

The very first step that a restaurateur must take involves the time-tested restaurant menu engineering principle. For assessing which menu must be continued and which one should be dropped, two variables must be considered — profitability and popularity. Profitability refers to the high margin that a particular dish generates and popularity refers to the number of people who order the dish.

PROFITABLE:

Stars (Popular), Puzzles (Unpopular)

UNPROFITABLE:

Plow Horses (Popular), Dogs (Unpopular)

STEP 2: EFFECTIVE BALANCE BETWEEN THE THEME AND TRENDS

Since the unprofitable and unpopular dishes on the menu have been relinquished, there is now some space on the menu for some really new flavors.

The next step in menu development is to seek inspiration for dishes that are new, improved and in vogue with the latest trends. Scrutinize the headlines used on print, broadcast and social media to identify the names of recipes that people crave for and ingredients that are trending amidst foodies.

While modernizing the menu and trying to match the latest food cravings, one must also stay true to the theme or core concept of the restaurant. If you own an Italian restaurant, you should definitely not include uber-trendy poke bowls on your restaurant menu. Stay creative, but within the boundaries of your own restaurant cuisine.

Apart from following the trends, a deep look into the concept might also help in throwing light upon unsung ingredients and recipes that can be given a fresh lease of life by you.

STEP 3: CREATIVE BRIEF

Once the trends and themes are ready to be integrated into the restaurant menu, getting the culinary team involved in creating and revamping the existing menu items is necessary. With the creative brief or strategy in hand, this task becomes easier.

When an advertising agency is asked to design a new logo, advertisement or any other creative material, a project manager sets out on the task of writing a creative brief. This gives the entire creative team consisting of graphic designers, illustrators and writers a clear road map to follow. With these guidelines in print, they stick to the concept even as they explore unique ideas.

The same approach can be used with a creative team of chefs too. A short brief with the updated restaurant menu must be written. The creative brief must have budget elements as well. The culinary team must be given a cap on food costs per restaurant menu item. They can be asked to get creative and explore substitute ingredients or even try out time and cost saving cooking procedures.

STEP 4: TESTING AND TASTING

During this fourth step, the dishes that will be a part of the final restaurant menu must be selected. Researches have revealed that fine dining restaurants can have 7–10 choices under every category. For example, upto 10 items each under categories like appetizers, main course, desserts, sides, beverages, vegan, etc. If the number exceeds 10, it might become overwhelming for the customer instead of pleasing them.

You can trim down the number of items on the restaurant menu card only by tasting them. These days, several restaurants are creating test kitchen panels where they invite 8 to 10 loyal customers for a complimentary tasting session. They try out the dishes that have been narrowed down for the final menu and provide anonymous feedback in a written format.

STEP 5: PRICE THE MENU TO REAP PROFIT

Now, since the restaurant has a complete list of menu items, they must start calculating the cost incurred for each recipe and price the menu to reap maximum profit. If you use a modern POS system, it can be used as a menu management system as well as a food costing software.

Most restaurants use the food cost formula in reverse so that they earn a healthy margin on every menu item that they sell. This is how to do it:

i) Food costs should be determined based on the sum of expenses made for every ingredient and one portion of every dish.

ii) Divide that total by 30% or 0.3

iii)The quotient is the amount that must be charged for the particular menu items. 30% of the sale price will cover up the food costs while 60% goes towards gross profit.

Let us assume that the cost for a hamburger and fries is $3. Divide this by 0.3. You get $10 as the answer. Therefore, a restaurant must charge $10 for its hamburger and fries. While $3 covers the food costs, $7 goes towards the gross profit.

STEP 6: MENU TITLES AND DESCRIPTIONS

During this step, you will make use of strategies that will increase the sales by upto 27% — the descriptive titles (based on a research by the University of Illinois). A restaurant just needs to focus on writing the menu at this step. Designing it can be taken care of later.

A little storytelling can create a great impact on the audience. Making references to the feelings of family, patriotism and home-made goodness can also boost sales. Call out family recipes, highlight the national origins of a specific dish or explain about your exquisite home-made ingredients.

The way prices are written on the menu card also makes a major impact. Simply by removing the dollar sign and the double zeroes from the restaurant menu, sales can be increased by a whooping 8%. This is because the dollar sign reminds people that they are spending money and the double zero tends to make the price seem visually exorbitant.

STEP 7: DESIGN WITH A PROFIT MOTIVE

Once the text document has been finalized, step 7 involves the designing of the restaurant menu. There are various options on how this can be done. A restaurant can hire a graphic designer or use free restaurant menu templates that are customizable and adhere to the restaurant’s menu ideas. Always pay close attention to the physical layout and presentation of the menu card. Even fonts can make or break the image. When restaurants use fancy typefaces, customers sub-consciously assume that a sincere effort has been made to make the dishes creative. This encourages them to spend more as they think that the labor-intensive team in the restaurant must be awarded.

Dishes must not be arranged on the basis of price on a menu card. If you place the menu items from the most expensive ones to the least, customers will start comparing the prices rather than focusing on the options available to them. Always draw the attention of customers to the menu starts — highlight the high profit margin items with a different color or by using a text box around the name.

Simply do not laminate the printed paper and hand it over to the customers. Instead, make use of a high-quality material or provide digital menus using tablets. Choose a paper stock that does not fly with a light sneeze. Use an on-trend clipboard and forego the less quality paper. Get a picture-perfect menu printed for your valuable guests.

The above mentioned 7 steps are just a guide towards the menu building and writing process. This is not a one-time effort. Rather, restaurant menu engineering is a continuous process. Restaurants must always revisit their menu at least once in 3 months, constantly look out for the menu dogs and instantly remove them from the offerings.

Hope this guide has been an eye-opener to the challenging process of restaurant menu creation. Wishing you all success as you chart the next chapter of your success story!