Your Restaurant Menu Should Make People Hungry!
You must spend time and effort, creating a delicious menu that represents your cuisine and engages with the customers reading it. One of the first things a customer looks at before deciding to eat at a restaurant is the menu.
Ifyour menu looks bland, the customer is likely to think the same about the food and decide to dine elsewhere.
Did you know the more food description words you include in your menu, the lower the price will seem to your clients? Why, because they’ll feel that they’ll be getting more value for their money. Not only will they think they are getting a delicious meal but also a bargain!
An experiment conducted by the director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, Dr. Wansink, discovered that using food description words helped boost sales with 27% more than the same name dishes not accompanied by them.
Your menu is a valuable tool to entice people into your restaurant, and as all your dining customers will be reading your menu, you need to take some time to create an exciting and worthy menu.
The best menus have personality and are a visual reputation of the restaurant’s cuisine.
Plain vanilla menus that say what the food is, in the boring text, is not eye-catching and is dull to read. Make your menu interesting, and keep with the culture of your restaurant’s personality.
Your Restaurant Menu Should Make People Hungry!
Here are some technics that are used to get your customers hungry and salivating!
~Descriptions Are The Best Place To Start
Instead of just saying our famous Chocolate cake, try using some of the following menu descriptions words:
Our Famous 6-Layer Chocolate Cake slathered in chocolate gateau, Belgian chocolate filling, fresh whipped cream, and raspberry butter icing.
Using nostalgia and emotional words to describe menu selections can be favorable. A nostalgic reference from the past can help you win over your customers.
For example, instead of merely writing Deep Dish Lasagna on your menu, you can use the following samples: Grandma Josephine’s Traditional Sicilian Lasagna Wedges
~Appetizing Photo
A menu with photos of different meals to tempt your readers is also another way to get your guest’s stomach growling!
Don’t overdo it. You would think it’s a good idea to fill a menu with photos of different meals to tempt your readers. But pictures can also be distracting.
If a person is reading your menu from outside your restaurant, the pictures they see can determine if they want to eat there. They might be in the mood for pasta, but if they get distracted by the meatloaf and mashed potatoes, they might not notice the mention of pasta dishes.
Pictures are useful, showing off your popular and signature dishes. If you want to have pictures, use them sparingly and make them small. Your text needs to stand out more than the pictures.
~Menu Engineering
A study by San Francisco State University discovered customers read menus just like books, starting from the left and reading down before looking to the right page.
Understanding how people will look at and read a menu will help you place your enticing dishes in the right spot to help people decide what to eat at your restaurant.
It’s best to use boxes if you have a lot of dishes. You are using boxes in your menu design to keep your menu looking tidy and comfortable for readers to follow. By using boxes to separate each group of main courses, you can help readers scan the menu and find what tempts their taste buds.
When starting a restaurant, there are so many vital factors to consider.
The food must be excellent; your staff needs to be friendly and efficient; the restaurant needs to be welcoming, and even if you have accomplished those three significant features, you cannot neglect your menu!
A well- planned and designed menu can help any restaurant achieve its goals; most importantly, keep your customers coming back to try more of what’s on it. The key to excellent and practical menu design is not only creating something to entice your customers but being efficient and flexible.
Resources
If you need help, I can show you how to create menu selections that deliver the flavor and visual appeal while considering targeted food cost, profit, and the consistency your customers will expect.
My Resources Describe the Most Important Steps Required to Make Your Restaurant Startup Work and Step 5 of my Restaurant Startup Success Plan How to Develop a Profitable and Tempting Menu – digs into all the elements that make a profitable and favorable:
Menu Planning- Menu Formats- Menu Descriptions- Menu Pricing- Menu Engineering