In order to increase sales and customer satisfaction, restaurant owners should stick with a few menu items that are both profitable and popular. This can be a difficult task for restaurants that like to add new choices to their food menus.
Also known as cash cows, these items typically produce high volumes of sales with low profit margins. However, they are necessary to define a restaurant’s concept and cater to specific customers.
1. Authenticity
Authenticity is one of the most important restaurant concepts to master because diners crave it. People are seeking out restaurants that offer dishes and ingredients with a sense of genuineness, whether it’s the hole in the wall taco shop or the basement noodle place.
To establish authenticity, menu items should be descriptive without going overboard with culinary jargon. The description should be concise and paint a picture of the dish that will make diners want to eat it. A lengthy description will cause diners to stop reading and move on to something else on your menu.
Another way to establish authenticity is to include user-generated content on your website. This will add social validation that can reassure your guests that they are in the right hands.
2. Variety
There are many different types of dishes that restaurants should include on their menu. This includes appetizers, salads, entrees, and desserts. Restaurants should also consider including a variety of options based on the season or holiday.
Restaurants can also use variety by offering different portion sizes for their dishes. This can help customers feel like they’re getting a good deal, as smaller portions often cost less than larger ones.
Another way to increase variety is to offer dishes that have been locally sourced. This can boost customer interest because it allows them to support the local economy. It also makes the food taste better by being fresher.
3. Convenience
If your restaurant is in a convenient location and has an adequate parking area, it is likely to attract more business. In addition, a restaurant Bellflower CA that is clean will have a positive impact on the dining experience of guests.
From a menu standpoint, it is important to have an accurate picture of what dishes are selling best and which ones should be trimmed or eliminated from the menu. This can be done by checking sales reports, as well as looking at Google and Yelp reviews for what customers are referencing as their favorite dishes.
Additionally, restaurants should avoid creating a “price trail” with their items by keeping menu prices on the side of the dish rather than above it. Putting the price in front of guests can distract their attention from the dish description and encourage them to make selections based on cost.
4. Value
When customers are faced with too many options, they often lose faith in their instinctive decision-making skills and default to something familiar. By limiting the number of choices on your menu, you can help them feel confident in their decisions and encourage them to splurge on something special.
Using POS data, identify your star dishes (very popular and profitable), plough-horses (popular but low-profitable), puzzles (highly profitable but not very popular), and dogs (neither popular nor profitable). Ensure that all of these are on the menu and strategically placed through smart menu engineering.
For example, if you have an expensive entree front and center, place a less-expensive dish below it as a decoy – people will see this and assume that they’re getting a bargain.
5. Atmosphere
When people come to your restaurant, they expect it to be a certain way. The atmosphere you create will influence their decisions and the way they spend their money.
A menu that is overly complex can overwhelm customers and make them feel confused or stressed out about their choices. This is especially true if your food is complicated or uses industry jargon that the average person may not understand.
Restaurants use various tactics to manipulate their menus and get people to spend more money on their dishes. One tactic is using different colors to make items appear more or less expensive, a trick known as “anchoring”. Other strategies include limiting the number of options, using small portions to imply value, and displaying high prices prominently while lowering the price of dishes that are on sale.
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