The menu of a hospitality establishment is an element perhaps underestimated by many owners of small and medium-sized businesses, thinking that only those of a large category have an elegant and well-designed presentation.
It is difficult to make one, and even if you hire an expert to design it for you, there are a number of elements that you as the owner must take care of and know in depth. You cannot supervise something without knowing the criteria to qualify it.
Remember that the restaurant menu must:
- Reflect the personality and style of the establishment
- Provide information on what customers can eat
- Encourage you to order the dishes you are interested in serving
We start with the tips …
1. Reinvent the classic elements
The most classic elements that we take for granted in a menu are two: the names of the dishes, and the price of each one of them.
But do not just present them: make a selection of the most prominent, the most attractive to the client, to yourself, and try to create a collection that is attractive and encourages sales.
Do not use the traditional categories, classify by fresh, classic, hot products, etc.
2. Open the price range of your letter
Because the menu contains the prices of everything that you offer to your guests, you cannot “keep” anything.
But you can expand the price range, and arrange a menu with high and low prices to have a balance with varied prices.
3. Show off local foods
If in your restaurant you make use of local products, you can add the description of each dish, but briefly, that is not more than three lines.
Imagine that you have your restaurant in Guadalupe, Cáceres, and you use, for example: paprika from La Vera, honey from Villuercas and Extremadura Siberia … your guests, Extremadura or not, will love to know how you integrate them into your kitchen.
4. Organize it according to the reading scheme
When you read a book, how do you start reading it? From left to right, top to bottom? Right to left, top to bottom?
It has been taken for granted in older studies that people read menus from right to left, from the top right corner, to the left, then down from left to right, and finally to the center.
And many restaurants design their menus accordingly.
I have news: customers read the menu like a book, from right to left, in an orderly fashion. The study was done by the University of San Francisco.
That study found no evidence for the order that everyone believes.
5. Don’t use photographs: use illustrations
High-end restaurants do not use photographs in their menus: it will be for a reason. Photography is not recommended because it can create very high or very low expectations of what they will actually receive at their table.
Use some, but make sure they are very professional and of high quality. The image that we show you is an example of a menu that we have found on the pinterest social network, created as an illustration that you can use instead …
6. Do not place the coin sign
When you put the price of the dishes on your menu, omit the sign of your currency: $, €, £, ¥, etc. The only thing you will achieve is to remind your guests at all times what is being spent, and it will seem like a lot.
It is better to just put the number down. It is obvious that, if you are in Spain, it will be euros, in Mexico, pesos, in the United States, dollars, etc.
A study revealed that restaurants that omit the currency sign sell more than when they were wearing it.