The secret recipe that draws diners towards a restaurant is a good menu. An appealing menu speaks tons about the signature dishes and mouth-watering cuisines at your restaurant. It’s the menu that represents the theme, ambience and image of your brand. A well-designed menu serves as a powerful tool to attract and influence your diners to order more.
Before getting into the details of designing the menu, let’s try to understand the concept of food cost.
Food cost
In simple terms, food cost refers to the cost incurred for the various ingredients involved in preparing a dish. It’s based on the food cost that you fix the final prices of the dishes in your menu. Generally, the food cost makes up to 30-35% of the final price. For eg. if the cost involved in preparing a particular dish is Rs.100, the ideal price to be charged is Rs.286. Though it may sound expensive, there are several elements that go into preparing a dish. Some of those expenses are the electricity bill, labour cost, cost of food materials, rent of the building, etc.
Now let’s take a quick look at the 6 golden rules that need to be kept in mind while designing the menu at your restaurant.
Right pricing
There are two important factors while fixing the right prices for your dishes. The first one is the food cost and the second one is the value offered for the money paid by customers.
However, a simple formula will help you fix the minimum menu price.
Minimum menu price = Food Cost / 0.35
Though there are no hard and fast rules, the above formula will ensure that you make profits while fixing the price.
Choose the right material
Pick the material of the menu based on your budget and how you want to position your brand in the market. Go for hard covers if yours is a posh, high-end restaurant. If it’s a low budget cafe, then printing the menu on a cardboard will do the trick.
Platforms such as inresto DineIn offers a digital menu that is an imperative in the post Covid-19 world. As customers prefer to go contactless, they can access the digital menu by scanning a QR code on their phone. There is no need to touch the paper menus that is used by many people. One more advantage of digital menu is that it helps save labour and printing costs.
Design your menu logically
Place the dishes on the menu in the sequence in which customers prefer to order. The appetizers should appear at the top and the desserts at the end. Avoid using huge sections of text in your menu. The fonts should be simple to read and easy to understand.
Keep the words appealing
It’s the description of the dishes that entices customers to order them. Spend time and come up with words that fire up your customer’s imagination. Stay away from using complex words as many diners may find it difficult to comprehend. The whole idea is to educate your customers about the dishes and make them order more.
Promote your signature dishes
The best-selling dishes at your restaurant are generally the signature dishes. Make sure that the signature dishes grab the attention of your customers. Placing those dishes inside a box or highlighting them is one technique. One more effective method is by adding the tag “Chef’s recommendation” to the signature dishes.
Collect customer feedback
Now that you have designed your menu and fixed the prices, it’s the time to gauge the effectiveness of the menu. The right people who can comment on the menu are your diners. Collect detailed feedback on the various aspects such as the graphics, text, pricing etc. Based on their inputs, redesign your menu accordingly.
Parting Words
We are going through an era where restaurants are battling with the challenges posed by COVID-19. There is a sharp fall in the number of diners as they are scared of the contraction. A properly designed menu plays an integral role in attracting customers and boosting restaurant sales. The above discussed 6 golden rules will definitely help you in designing an effective menu.
