Why menu is important in restaurant

It should offer a little bit of history, if applicable, but, more importantly, it should offer enough information about the food that people can make an informed decision. What goes into each dish, how hot is it and are there any ingredients that may be of concern to people with allergies? A good menu should provide all of that information.

While all restaurants have a set number of dishes, a good menu should highlight the variety that the restaurant has to offer. After all, we all have different tastes so the menu should make it clear that there are many different dishes that can accommodate that. This comes down to information, in part, as a simple list of dishes without context may lead a person to believe that there is little variance between them. Plus, the experimental foodie may enjoy exploring dishes they have never heard of before, which can only be done if there is enough variety on the menu in the first place.

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive information about our offers and events. It also expedites taking orders for your waiters, especially during a full house. Another effective method is to have some pictures in menu. This is good for restaurants serving ethnic food where the customers are not familiar with the native names of the food.

In general people are more attracted to pictures than words. Nice pictures not only make ordering faster but also promoting your food. However please remember that while good pictures can attract customers, bad pictures turn off the appetite.

Make sure the pictures are taken by someone who knows how to make the food looks good. Elly Suliana is an accountant who has been involved in opening, operating and managing few restaurants in Kuala Lumpur for the past 10 years. She loves food and everything associated with it. Her step-by- step guide has helped many Malaysians and foreigners opened their restaurants in Malaysia.

After that, consider your location and how it relates to the immediate neighborhood around you. Knowing this, ask yourself the following:. There are no rights or wrongs in when you design a menu. What works with some establishments fails at others. In designing it, think about how it will best represent your image and objectives.

Are you classy and sophisticated? Fun-loving and wild? When you design a menu it should mimic the dining experience. Arrange items sequentially, with appetizers, salads and soups first, then entrees, then desserts. Place star items on pages that contain more visual flair than others, and set markers or photographs around featured items to further draw attention.

Merchandizing techniques will further help this agenda when you design a menu by allowing you to easily spotlight specialty and signature items, introduce newer selections and invoke an appropriate sense of personality.

In turn, the techniques also make these items easier for your clients to find and recognize. Place your best selling items, or those you want to have the biggest draw, on the Prime Sweet Spots of the menu. Highlight spotlight or signature items in a way that draws attention to them: boxing selections off within your menu works well at this, as does adding colors, photographs, labels and logos.

Naming items specifically or creatively ex. Rojo Chicken Salad and using active descriptions of the ingredients in the dishes, makes the food sound more enticing and exotic for the client — and may induce future visits. Traditional favorites and creative selections need to be included. However, the menu design must also address the operational aspects of food cost, gross profit, average check, purchasing, preparation and kitchen efficiency.

With these aspects clearly defined, the actual design of the menu will help management achieve their menu goals. Whether you choose to print your own menus in-house there are several very good menu software programs you can use , contract the services of a menu design consultant or simply work with your local printer, the profit, cost and sales goals must be reflected in your menu design. No one can design a menu to accomplish these goals unless they are part of the menu planning and design process.

This means talking to the graphic designers, printers, copywriters and menu consultants who can offer suggestions on selecting type fonts, ink color, paper texture, graphic designs and all the visual techniques they can apply to the menu. The menu may be the most important internal advertising device used to sell the customer once they are inside your restaurant.

Using forecasted cover counts and average check targets, the menu design directly influences sales revenue. Management is constantly forecasting business volume and relating this knowledge to decisions on how much to buy, keep in inventory and prepare.