HotOperator® Restaurant Menu Builder

Restaurant Menu Design: Why Highlighting Items Is So Important

People are looking for your highlights. It’s true, your customers want to know what you think is good to eat in your restaurant.  So what are you going to tell them? What most menus ‘say’ is: Everything is the same it’s all pretty good, have whatever you’d like.

 And while everything on your menu is probably good, some things are better. If an item makes you a higher plate contribution, isn’t that better for you? And while the items with a high contribution to margin are probably just as good as the items that don’t make a lot of money, if your guest is asking you, why not offer items that help you grow profitably over time?

 In fact it is my contention that to not do that is not only a mistake, it’s also a disservice to the restaurant industry.

 We have developed the very best techniques for highlighting on a menu. And we can put that expertise to work for you. Reach out to HotOperator and set up a consultation. We’ll help you grow, profitably.

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Restaurant Menu Design: The Menu As A Business Building Device

Restaurant Menu Design: The Menu As A Business Building Device

 

Country Skillet Restaurant, Clearwater Florida

 

A well-engineered menu can have a huge impact on the overall profitability of your restaurant. This is done with managing the throughput in the operation. And the longer your guests have been patronizing your restaurant, the more radically you will need to change your menu in order to have an impact on your guests. This is primarily because your guests will often purchase out of habit rather than based on the menu.

With the Country Skillet restaurant, we wanted to shake up the crowd a little and hopefully get them to change their habits a little.

With the Country Skillet restaurant, we wanted to shake up the crowd a little and hopefully get them to change their habits a little. And short of a smack upside the head, introducing fresh colors and graphics can sometimes be enough to get people to notice the menu. A common remark by our clients is that when they launch a completely redesigned menu they will get comments from their guests referencing all the ‘new’ items that have been added to the menu when in fact those items were actually on the previous menu.

Your menu is your single most important communication device outside of your people. And the restaurant business is unique in that when someone goes into a restaurant they are seldom there to browse.  How many times have people come into your restaurant and said that they don’t want eat, they’re just looking? When someone comes to your restaurant, they will buy. What they buy may not be established, but you know they will get something to eat and probably something to drink as well. So the potential in your restaurant is really based on how well you can present the items that offer a great experience for your guests and at the same time offer a solid return on investment.

 

  

Everything in your restaurant is good, right? It wouldn’t be on the menu if it wasn’t good. But some things are better. And if the item you decide to promote happens to make you an extra buck while at the same time offers your guest an arguably better meal, all the better. And what you want to do with menu engineering is draw attention to and induce trial of the items that offer a better contribution to margin.

 My advice to any restaurant operator is to have a really good idea what the perfect meal occasion is for any day-part you are offering. So if you’re open early for breakfast, think in terms of what you would like your guests to order more often. Many restaurant operators take a shot-from-the-hip approach to the business thinking that if they offer a lot of variety, they will attract more customers, when in fact focusing the business on items that you can be famous for is much more effective. And while it’s OK to have a divers offering, keep in mind that your business is going to be famous for a few items that you make well and that your guests really love, and everything else is an anti-veto item.

With the Country Skillet, we wanted to draw attention to the grill sections, seafood and some of the gourmet sandwiches. Each of these categories offers a much better than average plate contribution, and they are all items that Steve Trizis, owner of the Country Skillet is very proud of. Keep in mind, though, if you highlight an item that isn’t great, a good highlight will kill the product more quickly. This is because when you call attention to an item, you are recommending it to your guests. So when more people try the item and don’t like it all that much, the product will go through its lifecycle more quickly. So only draw focus to items that you and your entire staff agree are excellent.

 Once a number of years ago I worked with a breakfast chain and we highlighted some items we thought would be good for business without consulting the staff, and none of the highlighted items got a bump in sales. What was happening was when a consumer inquired about a highlighted item the servers would all grimace and redirect them. And no matter how good your poetry and graphics are, people trust people more than the written word or a photograph. So make sure you get buy-in from your staff on the items you want to promote.

Here is a video we developed a number of years ago that you can share with your servers so they better understand what you're trying to accomplish in your business.

 

 

 

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Restaurant Business: Will Menu Engineering Grow My Restaurant Business?

Restaurant Menu Design Images: from HotOperator

Restaurant Menu Design Images: from HotOperator®

Athen's Kouzzina Menu Design Image

I was surfing the web a while back and noticed that when you search for menu design and then look for images, there were very few nice menu designes to choose from. So I thought I would put together some design images that we've worked on and perhaps they will inspire other excellent design work for restaurant operators.

The Slocan Menu Design Image

Design is essential to your restaurant. So many restaurant operators will boast about how everything they do is by hand and artisan and yet they either have a friend make their menu, use one of their serviers or use a factory design off the web. Professional design will go a long way to enhance your brand and give your guests the idea that you really care about your food, that your food is actually better than the guy down the street and that you go to great lengths to offer your guests the very best in service and food quality.

Brit's Menu Design Image

Conversly, a poorly designed menu will give your guests the idea that you really don't care enough about your food or the business to design a great menu. And while I understand the desire to save money, I can also say that you have to make a decision about how you want to represent your food.

Egg Harbor Menu Design Image

Menu design will have an impact not only on how the guest sees you and your restaurant, but it will also have an impact on how well they like your food, how your food tastes, how willing they are to come back, how much money they spend and how often they will recommend you to their friends.

Portobello's Menu Design Image

As a restaurant owner, you have to make a decision about how you want to represent your food.

Restaurant Food Photography: The Original Mels Location Photography

I shot yesterday at The original Mels in Roseville California. We shot almost everything on and off the menu, including servers, exterior and interior shots. Had a great day with the clients, Don and Mike, a father and son team. They understand how to make the restaurant business work. The biggest problem with shooting at the restaurant was it's a high volume, non-stop rush of people. We had to work around the steady waves of customers coming in throughout the day. We would get a half hour lull in traffic and then another wave would come in seemingly all at once.

At about 4:00P we were pretty much finished, and the plan was to head up to Reno to shoot that location but the weather didn't cooperate. I got to about 4000' above sea level and the temperature dropped producing near blizzard conditions. The road was blocked and only cars with chains could go through, so I had to turn back. Being from Wisconsin I'm used ot driving in snow, but not in the mountains and the hills combining with a steady stream of trucks made a very tense drive. Hell, I'd have kept going had I not been turned back, so this is one case where I'm glad for the highway safety patrol.

I headed back down the mountain to Mels Midtown Sacramento on J Street and shot there for a while. Then headed for Brentwood which is closer to Oakland, CA. By the time I got in it was late so I got a hotel and called it a day. Shot 400 exposures and started editing for Facebook posts today.

I pull the raw photos into PhotoShop and add a filter if it needs it and adjust the exposure. I shoot a bracket, and tend to like the darker exposures to start with and then adjust the exposure myself. In the egg photo, I added a yellow filter, outlined the sour cream and filtered blue so it wouldn't look like salad dressing. Then I cropped the photo, changed the image size to 480 pixels wide and saved the document as a png.

Larger image sizes will work on Facebook, Pinterest, et al, but they make the download slower, so I like to keep the images under 1MB.

You can see the posts on Mels Facebook Page here.

 

Manila Resto Restaurant Menu Design

Marlo and Patricia Ambas have never lived in Manila, but they have been influenced by its collision of cultures that started with nearly 300 years of Spanish rule, a Mexican settlement and a powerful Japanese invasion … and ended with the United States governance of the Philippine Islands in 1898 through the Treaty of Paris.

 Asian-Mex is only one of a long list of fusion foods to sweep through the country recently, as evidenced by Applebee’s Wonton Tacos. And Filipino cuisine is the quintessential Asian-Mexican marriage of flavors and textures. So it was bound to eventually reach white-bread America.

 For a consumer walking into their restaurant the first time, it can be somewhat like entering a new country. Everything may seem foreign, and if something is out of place or goes wrong, it will alter the experience and leave a blemish on an otherwise exciting new culinary love affair. Because Marlo and Patricia’s new Manila Resto is in a relatively small community and dependent on maybe a few hundred well-traveled patrons, this can be even more pronounced. The restaurant business is a risky one, and while people in small towns will often complain about the lack of a good restaurant in their local community, these are often the very same people who will be unforgiving with a new concept. And that can spell real trouble for any fledgling new restaurant.

 When we were asked to work on the Manila Resto menu, we allowed time for the restaurant to develop to near completion, as Marlo and Patricia researched menu items, surveyed potential consumers and renovated the location. Once everything started to come together and the menu items were nearly finalized, we began the journey of creating a menu that would complement Manila Resto and all it stood for. The trick is to work on the menu at the very last minute, but not so late that it couldn’t be done properly. In this case, we developed the menu in the last two weeks before their soft open.

 Building off of the Japanese sushi bar, robata grill, lumpia spring rolls and crab Rangoon style of foods, we used poetry, color, design and texture to express the Asian influence in the menu. Then Patricia and Marlo took the experience up a level for customers eager to try something new and exotic by adding Filipino items with foreign names. By providing a relatable description, we have the ability make the customer feel like they are daring and adventurous by trying dishes such as chicken kara-age, wakame salad and yakitori skewers.

 As for the design of the menu, it took a lot of planning to match the ambiance of Manila’s interior space. Another challenge would be menu sizing and covers. The restaurant was scheduled for a soft opening with a preview menu before the grand opening in September, which is highly recommended for new concept restaurants that need to work out all the unforeseen kinks. But with only one week to finalize the preview menu and covers taking 6-8 weeks to arrive, we also had to pick something that would be easy to change. The thing about new restaurant concepts is that there will be a constant flux in menu items based on customers’ likes and dislikes, ability of staff to prepare items and availability, not to mention getting health inspectors to OK a new restaurant menu over the summer. It may take months before the menu is just right, so picking a menu that can accommodate the needs of Manila wasn’t an easy task.

To see the final menu, follow this line to a sample image.

To start your own new menu, HotOperator can be found here.

Restaurant Menu: Spend Less On Your Menu

On 10/9/12 5:21 PM, "Kypros" <director@the-nagshead-pub.com <x-msg://63/director@the-nagshead-pub.com> > wrote:

 Hello mark

Thank you for ur quick reply. Here is a sample of my menu. Is quite big. I want to make it smaller and break it down to 2 or even 3 . I will appreciate any suggestions. I can sent you a product mix just to see what I sell more or less.
 
Kypros Kyprianou
 

On 10 Oct 2012, at 02:15, Mark Laux wrote:
Re: Nags Menu - Engineering, Etc. 
Hi Kypros:

OK, thanks for sending me your menu. It’s not so much big as it is HUGE. How do you manage all that?

To make it smaller, we can accomplish that in two ways. First, you would probably delete a few items and secondly, you could probably rearrange the categories to make better use of less space.

Do you use metric increments or English inches? That will help us better understand the standard sizes for printing the menu. And is this menu in some kind of a menu jacket? If so, do you want to keep using them? And if yes, we’ll need to know what size they are. If no, we can make the menu the correct size for you.

The photos are those yours and can we use them in our design?

The name of the business and the menu don’t match very well, so I would offer a suggestion to change the look of the name, etc. But if you are already using that for a sign or something we can fit it in and still make it fit your brand a little better.

You don’t have menu descriptions for most of the items you’re trying to sell – this is a mistake. Your guests need to know more about the items you sell, it will help them spend more more often and like the food better.

How we charge is time and materials. This is a very large menu, so that adds to the time. Plan on about 17 hours of art direction, another 10 hours of copy and menu engineering and then about 4 hours of creative direction. The hourly amounts are 75.00 per hour for design, 95.00 per hour for writing and engineering and 125.00 per hour for creative direction. All prices are in USD, so you will have an advantage in the exchange rate.

We charge via credit card, Master, Visa or American Express. We would need 1/3 down to start, we automatically take an additional 1/3 after 15 days and the final payment must be made before we take the watermarks out of any of the work we produce. You may have the work product if you like. We work in Creative Suite, so if you don’t have those programs none of our work product will do you mush good, but any local printer you may work with will be able to help you open and make changes if you would like.

You will make more money with our menu than you will with nearly any other menu. This is not a boast, it is a fact. So if you would like to make more money, this is the best place to start.

If this is acceptable, we will make a really great menu for you. I’ll get you a creative contract and you can fill it out and fax it back to us and we’ll get your project scheduled!

And thanks for thinking of HotOperator,

Mark

 

You will make more money with our menu than you will with nearly any other menu. This is not a boast, it is a fact. So if you would like to make more money, this is the best place to start.

On 10/9/12 7:27 PM, "Kypros" <director@the-nagshead-pub.com> wrote:
Hi Mark :)

So is huge:) I can suggest we can break it down to 2 menus . Snack and main menu. We can delete some items or a lot when u see the product mix report . I will try not to interfere with your ideas cause after all i come to you cause you can deliver me the best :) Isn't it ? So i will try to answer u all ur questions.
  We use metric increments. What i use at the moment am not happy with it so am looking for a whole new design and structure.
The photos are mine and i can sent you a lot more to choose from .
  You can change the way the name looks .
I agree we need to add descriptions in the new menu.
 So at the end....
Come on Mark tell me the best price you can offer me. :) My menu is Big but not my business :) Is a small family business so my budget is not that high. Am looking forward for your kind offer :)

Kypros

From: Mark Laux [mailto:mlaux@laux.com] 
Sent: 10 October 2012 16:51
To: Kypros
Cc: Kelly Laux
Subject: Re: Nags Menu - Engineering, Etc.
Importance: High

Dear Kypros:

I absolutely understand your business is small and your budget is tight. I also understand the menu undertaking is a very complex and time consuming process. Here is what you are asking, and I’ll try to sum this up for both of us. Can I do it for less money? Sure, I can do it for a lot less. I can make a menu for free, but I can’t do that for long. My business isn’t very larger either, and I’ve explained how we work on a menu. So that leaves us with only two ways to achieve the goal of offering a menu for less money.

I’ve mentioned that a menu your size and with the work it needs, the menu will take about 31 hours to complete. I mentioned that creative direction and consulting with you will take about 4 hours, design – engineering will take another 17 hours, and that writing your menu, and I’ll point this out again, you don’t have any text, so we have to write all that from scratch, will add an additional 10 hours. Maybe we’re slow, but I don’t think so. We’re thorough, though, and that you can depend on.

So one way we can develop your menu cheaper is to sell our hours for less money. In other words, just charge you less for every hour we work. I’m not incline to do that. I think we’re worth the same money per hour as an auto mechanic or a roofer, so I’m not willing to lower our rates below that. I’d like to get the same money per hour as an attorney or a doctor, but I’m not that greedy, and I realize the menu isn’t life or death. I think the amount we charge per hour is fair. If you disagree, you may find another menu company that is willing to work for less per hour and you are welcome to offer them the project.

Another way we can lower the cost is to sell you fewer hours. I’ve been in this business for more than a quarter of a century and one thing I’m very good at is estimating the time it will take to do something like this. As it sits, I need the 31 hours at minimum to complete the job. However, you may do as much of the project for us as you like and in that way, we don’t need to spend as much time working on your menu. As an example, you can develop all of the menu text and we’ll use that. Or we can just edit the text once it’s done, and that would save about half the time. You can do some of the design, too. All of this will save money.

But the problem for you is you need our expertise to make the menu make you more money. As I pointed out, a menu made by my team will make you more money per day, per ticket than any other menu you can buy for the same money. So while you’re looking for a lower price, you must also consider how much less you want to make in your business. Because each time you take money out of this system you also take more out of your system. The two are tied together and inseparable. Back to the doctor or attorney, it’s like saying to them: “Yea, I get it, you want to remove all the cancer, but I’m going to save a little money so just take out half and I’ll do the rest on my own.” Good luck with that.

Let me know what you would like to do.

Kindest regards,

Mark

So while you’re looking for a lower price, you must also consider how much less you want to make in your business. Because each time you take money out of this system you also take more out of your system. The two are tied together and inseparable.

Dear Mark
 
 You just shot me in the heartJ 
 
I came to you cause am expecting a great result. I didn’t come to you for a cheap work. At the other hand and with the crisis we are going through money are tied. And am not just saying that to make you feel sorry for me J.. So mark . can you put me down the final numbers (total) to deliver me the WHOAOOOOOOOOOOOO menu ? J  I have something in word format of my menu if you want me to sent it to you.
 So am waiting from you the invoice J

Kypros
 

Whiskey Creek Menu Design & Engineering

 

Here is the cover design for Whiskey Creek - click on the image to see the rest of the menu.

Restaurant Menu: Developing An Artisan Menu

As a follow up to the Artisan controversy between large corporations and small restaurants, there are still the authentic artisan restaurant operators that continue to promote their restaurant brand despite the currently publicity of the issue.

HotOperator recently completed a menu makeover for Stone Hut in Washington. Pictured here is the original menu.

As said in a previous post, the true artisanal restaurants are often the ones that don’t use the word as their claim to fame; it’s more about how they do what they do and the resulting products, than it is about how they promote themselves.

For an independent restaurant operator, there are two options on how to develop an attractive restaurant menu. The first and perhaps least effective way is to confide in a factory menu company to create a menu that consists of a template, which restaurant operators can put in their text and be done. This is a low-cost alternative that will often leave a restaurant operator with weak results.

The second alternative is to work with a menu engineer to develop an artisan menu. There is something to be said about the creative process of developing a handmade restaurant menu. Although it may take longer and is generally more expensive, the results can be superior.

"By gaining insights on your restaurant business, menu engineers get to know your restaurant's brand and effectively help it grow."

The process begins with a consultation with a menu engineer and a menu matrix analyze. The entirety of this process is known to be most effective because of the successful communication between the engineer and the restaurant operator. By gaining insights on your restaurant business, menu engineers get to know your restaurant's brand and effectively help it grow. From there, a menu development team can create descriptive text, add new products to a restaurant menu and strategically price items.

The finished product left Stone Hut with an attractive new look that wowed its customers

Following that, the designer is able to base the restaurant menu’s design around the restaurant operator’s vision for the restaurant business. Through back and forth alterations, the result is an extraordinary handmade menu that can bring in upwards of 5-7% increased profit depending on food, service and customer loyalty.

Restaurant Menu: Freshening Up For Spring

The mildest winter of the decade is quickly coming to an end as spring temperatures show up a few weeks early. Many restaurants didn't see the typical drop in consumer spending during the winter months because of the favorable mild weather. In fact, some restaurants increased in sales, making a positive start to the new year.

 

As the seasons begin to turn, restaurant operators must be conscious of the quickly approaching warm weather. The layers are starting to come off and people are starting to become more aware of what they look like, and more importantly, what they eat. Women in particular are paying attention to what they're consuming as the winter weight-gain stigma kicks in around the country.

With spring quickly approaching, now is the time to analyze your menu matrix and start updating your menu.

With spring quickly approaching, now is the time to analyze your menu matrix and start freshening up your menu with healthy trends. By removing heavier foods like red meats, potatoes and gravy, you can make room for fresh foods like wraps, salads and fruits.

It's important for restaurant operators to pay special attention to the wants and needs of women as they control 70 percent of consumer spending worldwide. To many women, food is like fashion with new trends and old fads constantly changing by season. Start doing some research and find out what's hot in the dieting and health industries. Pay special attention to super foods and low-calorie meals.

Start promoting your new seasonal menu before the month is over and focus on the women, as the next few months are often called the diet season. Include healthy side options, grilled or baked alternatives, soft colors and vibrant photos of fresh features. Compliment low-fat entrees with borders or an appealing symbol, green being the best choice of color.

To top it all off, make sure your menu remains unique. Too often people are left with a typical light Caesar salad or veggie wrap. This won't set your restaurant apart from any other. Brainstorm a couple of options on your menu and think of complimenting vegetables and a light dressing. Here are a few wrap ideas to help you get started.

Restaurant Marketing: The Brand is in the Details

 Everything that comes in contact with your guests in your restaurant will have an impact on how much they will like your business. That will relay how much money they will spend with you, how willing they are to come back and how likely they are to recommend your restaurant There is an order of importance to these contact points, with your people at the top of the list. Next are your bathrooms, and if they’re not clean and well stocked at a minimum, your guests are very unlikely to come back.

"Everything that comes in contact with your guests in your restaurant will have an impact on how much they will like your business."

And right behind that is the menu. It’s the third most important aspect of your business and it should reflect your brand, showcase your food and at the very least, nudge your customers to purchase items that offer your best opportunity to shine.  

 A second-generation restaurateur named Greg, owner of Alfie’s Restaurant in Ormond Beach, Fla., called me and said he was ready to work on his menu. Alfie’s is a family restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner with a strong local following in the Ormond Beach area. In fact, it’s almost cult-like in dedicated fans. This is primarily due to Greg and his staff doting over his customers and the  quality and consistency of his offering.

 In going through Greg’s web site, I noticed this stuffed alligator in many of the photos, and some of them looked like travel photos of people’s vacations, some of which looked to be in foreign countries. When I inquired about the stuffed animal in the photos, Greg became excited and explained that it had become an obsession for some of his customers to take his mascot on trips and then send him photos of the stuffed toy.

 What was surprising was there wasn’t any reference on Greg’s menu about the stuffed mascot. As a natural extension of the trend already happening in the restaurant, I asked if we were to come up with an illustration of a caricature, would that be something Greg might be comfortable with? He said he would, and so we developed a number of pencil sketches and looked at various illustration styles until we settled on highly rendered style or Alfie the Alligator Chef.

 Once the pencil sketches were approved, we added color, and as the various menus were worked on, we positioned Alfie in various poses and added a plate of eggs and a spatula to the illustration. 

 With the addition of Alfie the Alligator Chef to the menu, the restaurant gained character and increased the value of the brand. Now that Alfie’s story has unfolded, guests will remember the significance of Alfie’s restaurant and perhaps even participate in the ongoing travels of its mascot.

 

Does your brand need a new direction? Contact HotOperator, we can help.