A menu with eighty items looks generous, but it usually confuses the guest and the kitchen alike. Guests scroll for a long time and then order what they always order. The kitchen stocks ingredients for dishes that sell once a week. Fixing a menu does not take a designer or a complicated study. It takes a few blunt decisions. Here are five.
Decision one: know where you actually earn
Write your menu on a sheet of paper and put two notes next to each dish: does it sell often, and does it have a healthy margin? You will end up with four clear groups.
- Sells often, earns well: your stars. Feature them and protect their quality.
- Sells often, earns little: try a small price rise, a cheaper way to make it, or pairing it with a profitable add-on.
- Sells rarely, earns well: give it a better photo, a better description, and a more visible spot. Maybe nobody knows it exists.
- Sells rarely, earns little: a candidate for removal.
You do not need software for this. Your order history, your prices, and a rough idea of ingredient costs are enough to start.
Decision two: names that say what is on the plate
"Chef's special plate" tells nobody anything. "Lemon-garlic grilled chicken with vermicelli rice" tells them everything and makes them hungry. Keep the name short and the description to one line: the main ingredient and how it is cooked. Avoid fanciful names that need explaining, and avoid hype nobody believes.
Decision three: the order of things
- Put your most-ordered categories at the top. A guest on a phone does not scroll to the bottom.
- Open each category with a strong dish, not the cheapest one. The eye sticks to the first item.
- Keep each category to a reasonable size. Past eight or ten items, think about splitting it.
- Place the dish you want to push next to one that costs a bit more, so its price looks moderate by comparison.
Decision four: combos that work for both sides
A good combo bundles things people already order together: a sandwich, a drink, and fries. Do not build a combo just to move slow items, because guests notice. Make the saving real but modest, and name the combo for what is in it, like "Full Chicken Meal".
Decision five: remove without guilt
A dish nobody has ordered in two months costs you menu space, guest attention, and ingredients that may spoil. Do not cut everything at once. Remove two or three items a month and watch whether anyone complains. Usually nobody notices, and if a guest insists, you can bring it back.
A good menu is not the longest or the prettiest. It is the one where a guest finds what they want in under a minute, and where your restaurant earns something on every order.