4 Tips on Building the Perfect Menu for Your Restaurant
Building a restaurant menu may seem like a simple task, but the truth is that it is one of the most important decisions for the success of your business.
When well-structured, the restaurant menu has the power to help your business grow. However, common mistakes such as offering too many options or not using photographs can negatively impact the success of your restaurant.
For these reasons, it becomes crucial to invest in menu optimisation so that they become allies in increasing your restaurant’s profitability.
Along this article, we give you 4 tips on how to optimise your restaurant menu:
🍴Don’t overwhelm your customers with too many options
Offering as many options as possible to customers may be tempting, but most of the time, it is best to focus on simplicity. When there are too many options:
> The process of choosing a dish becomes more difficult, which can lead customers to give up on making a purchase.
> Generally, it requires the acquisition of a greater variety of ingredients.
Many restaurants already allow customers to customise their orders, whether to add, remove, or substitute ingredients, which becomes a valuable feature. Considering that our dashboard allows for such customisation, it can be a positive factor when choosing a restaurant on delivery platforms, improving the restaurant’s performance and increasing sales.
In addition to the reasons above, it’s unlikely that all dishes will be prepared with the best quality since the team’s focus becomes more dispersed. Offering 6 to 8 options per menu section provides customers with enough alternatives without overwhelming them with too many choices.
💰Have a consistent and reasonable pricing strategy
Make sure that the prices of the dishes on your restaurant menu reflect their cost value.
The price should allow for a profit margin (usually between 25% and 35%) while remaining affordable to maintain and attract new customers.
Through the analytical component of our dashboard, it is possible to identify the most popular dishes. This not only reduces costs by avoiding the preparation of dishes that won’t sell but also helps to manage inventory, sell dishes with higher profit margins, and those that are easier and quicker to cook. Furthermore, the restaurant keeps its menu up to date, considering customer preferences, market trends, and competition.
💬 Invest in compelling descriptions
A well-crafted description can make a dish irresistible to customers.
Instead of simply listing the main ingredients, tell a story in the description that allows the customer to visualise the full splendour of the dish.
For example, instead of “spaghetti with tomato sauce, meatballs, and cheese,” try “spaghetti covered in our homemade tomato sauce with freshly ground meatballs, finished with grated pecorino cheese.”
💸 Include menu modifiers to increase upselling
Some classic examples of menu modifiers include offering an extra side dish to add to a main course, a topping for a dessert, or including a coffee with the dessert. The goal is always to encourage customers to opt for a higher-value purchase.
We understand that one of the biggest challenges for restaurant managers who have their business present on delivery platforms is managing physical space and platforms, often paying less attention to the latter. Keeping that in mind, pleez manages all delivery platforms in one place.
Restaurants may not be the typical place that comes to mind when thinking about increasing sales, algorithms, and data analysis. However, we prove that using a technological approach can help restaurants adopt a more strategic approach and, consequently, sell more. We have already raised over 3.5 million euros and are working in Southern Europe with various brands.
Our dashboard shows competitor promotions, price comparisons, market trends, top-selling and underperforming dishes, among many other options. This way, managing your restaurant will be even simpler and more effective.
After analysing the data in detail, we provide monthly conclusions and suggestions for changes that we consider relevant to implement in your restaurant’s menu to evaluate progress and boost sales.
pleez offers great adaptability to the needs of each customer, making decisions based on real data. This way, we can achieve success and total satisfaction for our customers.
Stop deceiving yourself and let us help you manage your delivery platforms! Get in touch with us!