With consumers increasingly eating out nowadays, restaurant sales alone exceeded € 85.4 billion in 2017, up 3.6% on estimated 2016 sales. Revenues also increased in the last year - and in 2019 this increase will not abate! However, if you want to succeed in this fast-growing and highly competitive marketplace, it is important to run your business as efficiently as possible and to follow some best practices.
The following tips will help you better understand what you should consider when designing your new restaurant menu, for example. This makes your card easy to read, consistent with your brand image and optimized to significantly increase your revenue.
1. Describe your dishes as clearly as possible
Use descriptive adjectives in your menu to help your guests better understand what the dishes look like, taste, or what consistency they have. For example, words like crispy, creamy, or fried tend to evoke a particular inner image and address different senses.
2. Summarize
Make sure that the descriptions of the menu items are short and to the point. Your customers do not always want to spend a lot of time reading long and detailed descriptions. This could even cause your business to slow down overall. Orient yourself to a text about two lines and describe the ingredients, the taste, the consistency and the look.
3. Mention the origin of your ingredients
If your ingredients come from a special location, you can give your dishes a special value by mentioning this. "Sun-ripened Italian tomatoes" sounds much more delicious than just "tomatoes"! While this will make your meals more appealing to guests, do not overdo it and only state the true source of the ingredients - because your customers will be able to spot false claims!
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4. Display your prices correctly
This step can be a bit difficult. Although currency symbols cause restaurant visitors to judge the quality of the dishes on the basis of prices, many opt for the cheaper menu items anyway. Restaurants that avoid the currency symbols on the menu are known to generate higher revenue over the long term . If possible, avoid points or zeroes according to the price. This has a similar psychological effect on consumers.
For more tips on the best pricing strategies for your menu, read our article on pricing policy !
5. Represent your brand
Your menu should not only contain clear descriptions of your dishes, but also offer the opportunity to present your brand. Studies show that an average visitor spends no more than 109 seconds looking through the menu. Keep this in mind when determining the menu style and structure and how to present your best offers as effectively as possible. Not only sorting your dishes into categories, but also making it easy for your guests to quickly scan the titles. Emphasize certain points in bold, italic, or other fonts and use your brand colors.
6. Brag about your dishes
Most people think figuratively and no matter how good the descriptions of their dishes are, sometimes it just needs the support of pictures. Find a professional photographer and have the most beautiful and appealing works of your chefs photographed. Good pictures can show exactly what your dishes look like, so your guests can decide what they want to order more quickly. Do not forget to add captions so that visitors can easily read the description of the court and make the right order.
7. Run multiple languages
If your restaurant is located in a location with a lot of tourism, a translated menu can be extremely helpful. So you can not only serve your regular guests, but also easily new visitors. However, a translation can be difficult if you also need a custom design for the new text. Depending on what you want to do, you either need a new set of menus in a different language, or you may need to adjust the space in your previous map. If you choose two languages in a menu, you should represent both languages equally and avoid putting a language in the foreground.
8. Brainstorm for an optimal layout
Have you ever been in a restaurant that serves great food but has a horribly designed menu? Were you a little irritated that you had to read all the detailed descriptions, since a short fly over the map was simply impossible? Learn from these mistakes! The cover, colors, material and style are critical to the overall impact your menu has on visitors. Imagine your menu as a complement to your wholesale restaurant equipment: The theme of your interior design should also be reflected in the map.