Points to consider while designing menu for restaurant

Before start putting up your menu just asks one simple question to yourself, what are you going to sell to the public? Are you going to work on a unique recipe or you are working on a menu keeping in mind the region?

Menu is the reflection of your restaurant’s character, so it is more than the list of food with its prices. A menu should be well written piece defining food on offering. It is an important marketing tool to gain customers towards your restaurant. Of course, it gives you a chance to convert a first time visitor to a regular one.

Look at varieties of menu: Start doing a research on menu’s prepared by some big names in the restaurant business. See what other people are doing to make their menu enticing. Prepare a menu which in itself is tempting.

Menu description:  The good rule for writing your menu is to keep the menu short. The number of words in your item descriptions should form a bell curve with the type of restaurant you have. QSR should keep it to just a descriptive name (cheese burst pizza), where a Fast-Casual will have a few more words with possible photography. Your casual dining restaurant will have the wordiest descriptions meant to entice and add to the brand atmosphere.

Arrange your menu logically: Your menu should reflect the order, in which people actually eat the dishes you offer, be breakfast, lunch, appetizers, dinner, and then dessert. Traditionally, simple drinks (water, soda, tea) are listed last; specialty drinks (wines, cocktails) are usually on a separate list. The menu should be very presentable to the customers.

Restaurant Menu Design: Menu design in itself is the reflection of the restaurant.  The menu layout should match the colour, format and concept of the restaurant. For example, if you are opening a Mexican themed restaurant, vibrant colours such as red, turquoise, purple and green would be good choices for a menu. These colours would be at odds if it us used on the menu of a French bistro or Italian restaurant.

Menu Pricing: Menu pricing is something which makes your food sell, believe experts. Food cost and portion control are two ways to help price your menu correctly, so you make a profit but be careful not to price yourself out of the local market. Another way to ensure profit is to create a balance of expensive and inexpensive items and limiting the use of market price items, which have the greatest fluctuation in prices.

Pic Courtesy: www.bridgetownmillhouse.com