Menu

Menu Design

The menu is often underestimated as a powerful marketing tool. Your menu is guaranteed to be read by your customers and plays a vital part in customers’ choices, not to mention budgets. What many Restaurateurs don’t realise is that the menu must not only be well designed but should also have in place effective yet subtle sales strategies to reach its full potential. It is a sure fire way to boost the average check and encourage repeat business.

Image & Theme

First and foremost the menu must tie in with the restaurants’ image and theme. It should complement the building design, service, food and beverage standards and price range of your restaurant. For this to happen, planning must not be done half-heartedly. The menu must be given the time, effort and budget that it deserves. Where you want to emphasize certain items on the menu, make them stand out.

Your layout ideally should influence customers’ decisions on what to order (or at least increase the odds of an items selection). It takes the same amount of time to read the menu as it does to judge a first impression. The following strategies are simple ways of bringing your service and products to the forefront.

Concentration Points

Plan your menu to deliberately direct the customer’s attention to certain items. The positioning of dishes on the menu is one such technique, as sales may improve with a simple reposition. There is a point of concentration within any format. The key is to turn this area into a point of sales concentration. Put the most important dishes (e.g. signature items) in this area to increase sales.

What decides where these concentration areas are, is not only the format of your menu but also eye movement patterns that result from the different formats. The table below explains several formats and their subsequent concentration. It is important knowledge to have when setting up your menu, so that you are able to some degree, predict where your customers will look first – or not look at all.

It is also a good idea to categorise menu items for easy readability. Since most readers only scan the menu, setting your format in this way makes the customer’s decision making easier. You can also highlight whole categories in your sales concentration areas.

Eye Magnets

Eye movement is not fixed. It can be distracted or directed. A useful technique to achieve this is through the use of eye magnets. These are features that draw the eye and attract the customer’s attention. Examples of these are boxed menu items, coloured font, larger or bold font or an illustration or graphic to pull the eye’s direction. The placement of food on the menu is typically assigned by the logic of what would be eaten first. This as a result makes main meals the largest focus, which may be your intention as mains are the most expensive items on the menu, However, if you want to boost sales, you may consider balancing the focus or placing emphasis on desserts or entrees to increase the sales of these items.

Size

The size of the menu is also important. Having an oversized menu does not mean that customers read all of its contents. If anything it probably means you have too much on the menu and should consider having separate lunch and dinner menus, which enables you to put the focus on the right meals at the right time of the day.

Visual elements increase the effectiveness of any menu and are the largest players of eye magnets. Be selective as to where to attract the customer’s eye,

Another visual tactic is the use of colour as the brightness of a colour can be increased or decreased to create contrast whilst not losing continuity. Lastly, putting a box or border around certain menu items or groups is an instant way of drawing the eye. That being said, it is of no use if not used discerningly. Don’t go box crazy! Ideally stick to one item or one group to create focus.

In conclusion, it may be agreed that there is much more to the menu than at first glance - but that is all your customers will have. Take the time and energy to carefully consider the psychological design of your menu and the merits of using its full potential. Your efforts will be rewarded!