Restaurant Menus

12 important questions on Restaurant Menus

What are the main factors to create an effective menu?

  • Display unique personality of the brand
  • Target segment and what can attract the most customers
  • Should be structured and divided into logical sections,taking into account eye-scan patterns
  • Maximize profitby directing the sale of products in a way that appeals to customers.
  • Aesthetic design
  • Menu is effectivewhen it is paired with a consistent pricing strategy --> OMNÈS PRINCIPLES



Once the menu is complete, it should be reviewed regularly through analytics, known in the restaurant industry as menu engineering.

What is the price range?

Within a range of products, such as starters, main courses and desserts, the ratio between the highest price and the lowest price must be between 2.5 and 3.

What is price spread?

The range of products should be separated into three equal price intervals. In each range, there should be a low, middle and high zones. The number of articles in the middle zone must comprise 50% of the menu, the number of articles in the low and high zones should comprise 25% each respectively.
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What is supply and demand?

This principle helps make sure that the asking price matches the one the customer expects to pay within each range. This is achieved by calculating average demand and average supply. Average demand is the revenue of the range divided by the number of units sold in that range. Average supply is sum of the prices of the range divided by the number of items in that range.

What is promotional set menu?

Promotions, such as daily specials, must be placed in the middle of your price range, based on the price spread.

What is a menu engineering matrix?

The purpose of menu engineering is to increase profit per guest at a restaurant by examining the popularity and profitability of each menu item.

How can we measure the popularity?

Using the Sales mix

How can we measure the profitability / Contribution margin?

  • The profitability is how much a menu item contributes to your restaurant’s overall profit
  • The menu items are then displayed through a chart and grouped together into one of four categories called plough horse, dog, star and puzzle.

What does the plow horse represent?

Items with high popularity and low profitability. These are popular menu items, however they have a low margin. The restaurateur might consider increasing the price, changing ingredients or tinkering with portion sizes to boost the margin.

What does the dog represent?

Items with low popularity and low profitability. These items are losers! The restaurateur should seriously consider removing them from the menu because they are not bringing in any profit.

What does a star represent?

Items with high popularity and high profitability. These items are winners! The restaurateur might consider a modest price increase for the next menu rollout.

What does a puzzle represent?

Items with low popularity and high profitability. Puzzles are the items you wish you could sell more of because they make you money. The restaurateur should think of how to highlight or reposition these items to increase sales volume.

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