Things To Consider Before Finalizing Your Restaurant’s Menu

 So you’ve finally decided to start your own restaurant?

Do you know what your customer sees first and what is the last thing they hold before digging into their food?

The Answer is Menu

We can easily argue that your menu is your most important piece of marketing material in your restaurant. If you design your menu in a certain way, it can send the trajectory of your sales in a whole new direction.

So what are the things you should keep in mind before Finalizing the menu.

1.Keep it simple silly.

Have you ever been to a restaurant where they have a 4-page foldable menu? FRONT AND BACK, items filled like they will sell you everything in a kitchen. When this happens, the customer gets overwhelmed by the choices present and ends up ordering the same thing over and over again.

This will give you a few loyal patrons for individual dishes, but you’ll never be able to showcase your talent in the broader cuisine. And on the financial scale, you’ll end up not using and, in the end, wasting things which nobody saw on the bottom third row of the fifth page.

Bear with us for a moment when we ask you about Sankalp, the restaurant that comes to your mind. A South Indian cuisine, right? Now, if we ask you about a “We serve all” restaurant, you won’t be able to point out much, right? That’s why you should stick to a lane and be the name that pops into someone’s mind first when they think of a cuisine.

Keep your menu clean, lean and make it a killer machine.

2.Design! Design! Design!

Do you know where being a minimalist doesn’t help? All the places where you have to make a sale. Writing down your meal courses on a simple or little to no design menu is not doing you any favors. As they say, “Pretty pictures sell.” Get a good designer who understands your USPs’ essence and get them to design a fabulous menu!

Colors play an extremely important role when it comes to invoking cravings in people, here’s a detailed article explaining more about it. Take a look and decide it for yourself.

Here’s a menu comparison for you.

Reducing your menu size and designing it better can work wonders right?

We’re just here to help, keep reading the article for more tips and tricks that will help your restaurant grow.

3.Quirk it up!

Pop culture has made its way into everything. Stereotypically, pop culture can mean a song reference or a TV show reference, but it has its roots way more in-depth than you think.

Have you ever been to La Pino’z?

You must have noticed framed quotes like “A pizza a day keeps the doctor away.” And on the menu, the names go like “Burn to hell pizza.” This is what pop culture has gotten itself into, and being quirky with your names and slogans have helped create better attention retention.

So go crazy with your names! You cannot do anything wrong with Iron Man fries or Black widow popcorns (too soon?).

4.Seasonal Menus for a boost

As a society, we are moving towards being more health-conscious. We are eating healthy & eating organic. How can you use this for your advantage, you ask? You design a concise menu with few items that are only available seasonally.

If you take the example of Naturals ice cream, you will notice that their seasonal mango ice cream is a big hit among its target audience And if we go local, we will realize that we eagerly wait for sugarcane juice every summer! This example must have taken you on a nostalgic trip! Enough to get the point across 

Bring that seasonal punch to your menu and quirk it up with the names “Winter warmer menu” & “Chef’s summer coolers” Your customers will eagerly wait for it all!

5.Make Digital Menus

What is a Digital Menu?

A Digital menu is your restaurant’s customizable menu card on a screen. But I think the more important aspect when we talk about the Digital menu is “How do you make one?”

When you print over a menu card or a poster, there’s room for colors not to pop as much as you expected them to. Being in the business of creating cravings; Colors help in a significant way. A slight mishap can drop your numbers. A digital menu will help to set the correct expectations of how your food will look. Plus you can add many photos! Let people read with their taste buds, not eyes!

Tools to help you create a Digital Menu. There’s a great tool called Viewneo, which helps you create a digital menu without much hassle. When you’re shifting from a traditional menu to a digital menu, you should keep in mind to follow a design language. View lets you pick a theme from the start to create an appealing design for your Digital Menu.

At Petpooja, our partners help you manage your digital menu cards so you don’t miss out on catering to people who wish to go for a contactless dine-in.

6.Have Order Scanning Menu

Who would have thought Covid would push us all 6 ft apart? Contactless became the new word for safe. A QR order card in place of a physical menu is a must in every restaurant now. Do you know what we did for you in times like this? We created a Q.R. code menu so your customers can sit, scan, and see what you have to offer without any worry.

Customers can scan a simple Q.R. code, select items from the digital menu, finalize their order, and complete payment, all without human contact while the order would directly land in the kitchen- all of this with Petpooja.

All these points seem helpful right? Who knew menus are so tricky. But don’t worry, we are here to make your life easy in every way possible. Now if you follow our advice, your customers will go through your menu the same way you did with this article!

We hope Petpooja’s blogs are very helpful for you. Please do give your feedback to us on shivani.dad@petpooja.com. And if you wish to get a Restaurant PoS for management, do take a look at Petpooja and try their free demo!