The Menu Designer

When your customer opens the menu, we know they you going to order something. The goal is getting them to look at the more profitable items and order them.

Menus should be laid out in neat columns with clean fonts. List the price in a casual way. This is the # 1 thing that most restaurants get wrong. When all the prices are aligned on the right, they can look down the list and order the cheapest item.  It’s better to have the digits without the dollar signs discreetly tucked at the end of each food description. That way, the customer’s appetite for tropical ginger chicken will be whetted before they see the cost.

Placement is also important. Menu engineering shows that on a 2-panel menu the most valuable real estate is the upper-right hand corner. That area should be reserved for more profitable dishes since it is the best place to catch–and retain–the reader’s eye.

Popular staples like a chicken sandwich or a burger–should be harder to locate. Make the customer read through a mouthwatering description of Caribbean fish tacos before they find the popular staples. This is like the grocery store putting the bread in the back; you have to walk by all sorts of tempting, high-priced items to get to it.

Make sure you use mouthwatering descriptions on signature items to make them stand out from others. What would you rather eat, plain chicken or fire-grilled chicken breast with a barbecue rub? Scrambled eggs or farm-fresh cracked eggs lightly sauteed in butter? Think flavors and tastes, words like tangy and crunchy give the customer a better idea of what something will taste like.

Pricing points, menu position and layout all have a lot to do with getting them to spend more. Have your menu engineer review your menu today and take steps to improve on your menu.

www.themenudesigner.com

Is graffiti an art form or a visual nuisance? Whatever side of the argument you land on, you have to admit that graffiti draws attention. Graffiti marketing, otherwise known as four-walls marketing, is the most cost effective tool for operators to attract new customers, repeat business and increase sales. Graffiti marketing uses every marketing zone in your restaurant to sell specials, pump up promotions and pack your party room. Take an inventory of your restaurant. Decide the zones best suited to “get the word out.” Use banners on your building, signage in your lobby, table tents on every table and flyers at your hostess stand and distributed in every take-out order. My favorite tool is signage in the restrooms. A little unorthodox? Yes. But it’s the only place your marketing message is not competing for share of attention. Marketing through multiple zones ensures your message is seen—often more than once, maximizing its impact. Graffiti marketing is one of the most cost effective ways to get your marketing message out.

www.themenudesigner.com

The heaviest restaurant users are between the ages of 25 and 49, according to NPD. For the 12 months through June 2010, 25-34-year-olds made 236 restaurant visits per person, down from 249 the year before, while 35-49-year-olds made220 visits in the same time period, down from 230. Members of this demographic continue to dine out, though they may be ordering fewer drinks and otherwise economizing in the face of the uncertain jobs outlook.

Likewise, older diners continue to hold their purse strings rather tightly. The older more affluent consumers are tightening their belts. They are going to wait it out until real estate improves and the market goes back up. In the meantime, operators may want to target Millennials, whom are consumers between the ages of 16-28 years old. Check averages may be low, but the 21-28 year-olds are drinking $1 Pabst Blue Ribbon rather than Sam Adams, but this group continues to dine out frequently, meaning you may see a higher number of visits per person.

Whomever you are trying to reach, we recommend extending happy hour, offering small plates or introducing tapas-style menu items. Customers can indulge, but at a lower price point that will get them in the doors.
Information from writer  Michaela Cavallaro, “Restaurant Business” October 2010

Forget the obvious tangible needs necessary for startup (i.e. capital). There are some requirements for opening and operating a successful food truck that have greater importance than in brick-and-mortar restaurants.

• Sociability: Few other than the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld fame can get away with being gruff. Food trucks offer a more intimate experience, making it crucial for food truck owners to turn on the charm when dealing with customers.
• Adaptability: Whether it’s frequently moving locations around town or making weekly (or even daily) changes to the menu, food truck vendors literally must make adjustments on the fly.
• Connectivity: A static website might not be enough to attract customers. Food truck vendors must be plugged into social networks, sites like Twitter and Facebook, to remind people to hit the streets for their next meals.
• Accessibility: If it takes you 30 minutes to find a spot to park your food truck, it won’t be any easier for patrons. Find a spot where foot traffic is prevalent to increase your truck traffic.
• Creativity: There’s a reason why Facebook and Twitter have their respective markets cornered. Until a better alternative pops up, both will continue to dominate the masses. The same is true for food trucks. The more unique the idea, the better its chance of survival.

1) A decline in organic produce. Customers will start to see more of a decline in organics in restaurants, but organic produce will continue to be popular in grocery stores.

2) Less becomes more. We will be seeing more smaller plate offerings – a movement away from traditional big plate, main course offerings. What makes this trend particularly viable is that it allows the consumer both to eat less and to save money; because the restaurant spends less money on each dish as a result and passes that savings along to the customer.

3) Better nutritional choices for children. Parents want their kids to eat healthier because of the increasing and alarming rates of obesity in children. Fruits, vegetables and milk with kids’ meals.

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Customer perception isn’t just what you, the owner, think it is. It’s what the guest sees, hears and smells, and it is often beyond an owner’s awareness.

All guests mentally evaluate a restaurant through their senses, and often we, the owners, get too busy or too familiar with our own properties to really notice when there are slip-ups in the overall details.

Such oversight can hurt a business terribly, however, which is why we, as owners, should feel obligated to regularly step into our patrons’ shoes to see how things are going.

Start with calling your business and listening to how your phone is answered. I called mine the other day. A newbie answered abruptly, so I asked her to say instead, “The Eagle’s Nest – this is Mary. How may I assist you?” Her reply to me was that she was too busy to say all that, and anyway it sounded stupid to her.

She is currently on probation.

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Posted by Jim on October 25th, 2010

Not only are restaurant patrons willing to pay more for meals prepared with produce and meat from local providers, the proportion of customers preferring local meals actually increases when the price increases, according to a team of international researchers.

A recent study of how customers perceive and value local food shows that restaurant patrons prefer meals made with local ingredients when they are priced slightly higher than meals made with non-local ingredients, said Amit Sharma, assistant professor, School of Hospitality Management, Penn State. The research will appear in the fall/winter issue of the International Journal of Revenue Management.

In the experiment, researchers first set prices for both non-local and local selections on the menu of a student-led restaurant at $5.50. When the price was the same for non-local and local food, customers showed no significant preference for either option. However, when the local food selection was priced at $6.50, or 18 percent higher than the non-local option, a higher proportion of the customers picked the meal made with local foods and ingredients, said Sharma, who worked with Frode Alfnes, associate professor, department of economics and resource management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

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