The “menu engineers” who optimize restaurant revenue

https://thehustle.co/meet-the-menu-engineers-helping-restaurants-retool-during-the-pandemic/

by Anon84 • 6 years ago

223 156 6 years ago

I just got back from a trip to Las Vegas and every single restaurant we went to had a QR code + online menu. Now, I am not sure if it was related to the reasoning stated here, but all the menus were also very short, with only a few items each. Personally, I was quite happy to view the menu on my phone. I know for a fact though my parents and grandparents would have hated such a thing.

vmception4• 6 years ago

In San Francisco everywhere has QR codes and the same format.

Had wine and charcuterie: food and separate drink menu on two different QR codes.

It's not perfect, many times the checkout system is haphazard, doesn't make use of Apple Pay or anything built into the phone. Requires user to input their table number into the checkout process.

Or its just a surrogate for normal waiter / server experience and they come up to you eventually (which is fine).

People all seem willing to tolerate the experience, and all the older luddites and technophobes are still in their prepper bunkers or just not in the city.

Interesting how much the last decade of technology and proliferation has prepared us for this. QR codes, mobile phones, highly available high speed internet. Just going back 10 years in many major cities, even San Francisco and New York, this would have been much much worse to adjust to.

ghaff2• 6 years ago

all the older luddites and technophobes are still in their prepper bunkers

Lose the name calling here please.

rhino369• 6 years ago

Phone menus I’ve seen so far are inferior to a good paper menu. I’d rather have a scanned pdf than the menus I’ve seen.

I’m sure someone could create one that is usable, but I haven’t run into one yet.

cutoff2• 6 years ago

My restaurant has been trying to implement a contactless ordering & checkout system since the initial shutdown in CA back in March. Our CEO refuses to open, even for takeout, until our dining experience is seamless. The trouble is is that nowhere has a completely seamless order-and-pay-from-your-phone system because it doesn't exist.

We've been working with one company that has integrated their web-app with our existing POS, but there's a lot of bugs with some wonky workarounds that we aren't comfortable with. They've been developing new features for us for months at no cost due to their pandemic program, however it's just not up to our CEO's expectations.

Now we're looking into switching to a completely new, modern POS that supposedly has a working order/pay from your device feature. Trouble is, the entire check has to be ordered (drinks, appetizers, entrees, desserts) all at once and paid for before it even gets sent to the kitchen. This is what the other company we've been working with has been trying to set up for us - guest sits down, scans the QR on their phone, orders at their own pace and checks out whenever they're ready - this is how our restaurant has been set up from day 1. We previously had iPads with a custom iOS app that the guests could order from. Our CEO believes this won't be an acceptable system moving forward as shared iPads aren't seen as sanitary as personal phones.

devmunchies• 6 years ago

What's the QR code for? The site generates a QR code after you order for you to scan when picking up the food?

maccard• 6 years ago

There's a qr code on the door or the table with a link to the menu that you view on your phone!

notagoodidea• 6 years ago

If it is the same that other restaurants I know, you scan the QR code to access the web page with the menu of the restaurant.

ipince• 6 years ago

The QR code is just a url that points to the menu, so you can load it on your phone.

eps• 6 years ago

No, just opens a webpage with the menu.

So not to need physical menus, due to Covid.

jrott• 6 years ago

The very short menu is an interesting change as well. It makes sense in a couple of ways I think. First it signals that they've really thought about what you should have and that they are super practiced at making it. Second it makes things cheaper and operationally simpler for the restaurant. I'm not sure which of those is a bigger deal.

apacheCamel2• 6 years ago

I fully agree. I'm also very indecisive at times so it helps when I only have a few options haha.

maxerickson• 6 years ago

There's diminishing returns when you cook the same thing over and over. People that are excellent cooks on round 1 aren't going to be a whole lot better on round 500 than they are on round 100. Also, they often rotate the short menu.

It's about efficiency.

vharuck• 6 years ago

If you went to higher-class restaurants, small menus are the norm. I'm no expert, and my wife only has a culinary degree from 10 years ago gathering dust, but some possible reasons:

- A smaller menu lets the chefs focus on learning to make those dishes at the expected level of quality. These items also usually require more skill and knowledge to just be passable.

- It's not so much that fancy places have small menus, as it is that non-fancy restaurants can have bigger menus. Their kitchens can have an assembly-line style that optimizes simplicity and time, letting them hire cheap cooks. When every dish is "throw each part in the oven/fryer/pot, wait 10 minutes, put on plate," adding 50 dishes doesn't put as much strain on the cooks.

cheerlessbog• 6 years ago

I assume that budget restaurants with large menus make heavy use of freezer and microwave. So a short menu is usually a good sign.

mrmonkeyman• 6 years ago

The QR shit is annoying. I'm young, but having to keep picking up our phones to look at menus and getting distracted by them is exactly why I go to a restaurant in the first place: human experience. Purely consuming food can be done at home.

Also, my wife's phone was low on battery so we were on a clock. This sucked. They had batteries but no cables for an Android phone.

cik2e• 6 years ago

I am loving the QR menus, especially ones that offer check out. For one thing, I almost always feel compelled to go wash my hands after ordering, since menus are known to be some of the most germ ridden things out there. Besides that though, restaurants could do some many cool things with this. For example, it would be trivial to offer photos of every dish. The next level could be item-item recommendations (people who order X, also like Y).

jt2190• 6 years ago

My wife always insists that we not handle any of our cutlery until we’re finished handling the menu and we’ve either used hand sanitizer or washed our hands. [1]

Unfortunately, mobile phones are also notoriously dirty [2], so we still wash after handling those as well.

[1] “Slideshow: The Germiest things in restaurants: #2 Menus“ https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/food-poisoning/ss/slidesh...

[2] “ Nasty Bugs Lurking on Your Cell Phone” https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20111014/nasty-bugs...

dugmartin• 6 years ago

The reverse z order mentioned in the article confirms what a friend of my wife who ran marketing for a regional chain said: the top right item on the first page will be the highest margin dish, normally pasta.

For years I would look and she was almost always right.

mycall2• 6 years ago

Is this true in Japan or China where reading direction changes?

sn7408• 6 years ago

In Mainland China reading direction is mostly left to right, top to bottom now, just like in most European/American countries. I should go and see if the top right menu item is the one with the highest margins.

duskwuff3• 6 years ago

Japan and China both read left-to-right, just like we do. While some traditional texts are written vertically with lines proceeding right-to-left, that doesn't really carry over to general UI conventions. A set of three horizontal images would typically be understood as proceeding from left to right, for instance.

Arabic and Hebrew, on the other hand, are primarily RTL, and this does carry over to UI conventions. Menus might be laid out differently there.

m3kw9• 6 years ago

Chinese dishes seem to have way more selection all the time. Its always overwhelming.

leetrout• 6 years ago

Three chain menus I hate:

Cheesecake Factory

Bonefish

Maggianos (really, a pocket pull out?)

duskwuff3• 6 years ago

Cheesecake Factory's menu is a monument to excess. It's ridiculous.

But, then again, so is the rest of the restaurant.

kevindong2• 6 years ago

It's a guilty pleasure masquerading as an experience for me.

InitialLastName• 6 years ago

TFA calls out Cheesecake Factory's menu directly: the goal is for patrons to get confused, ask the server what to get, and let the server direct them to more expensive/higher margin options.

supernova87a• 6 years ago

On the opposite side of the spectrum, I love the (rarely-found) type of restaurant where you enter, and they start serving you food where you have no choice in the matter. Like some family joint in the middle of nowhere that people go to for what they know will exactly be served, as if at home.

Of course, that's probably out the window after all this settles down. Those types of restaurants are probably highly likely to fold.

By the way, here's a funny parody of "every trendy restaurant menu": https://www.eater.com/2014/7/24/6181765/heres-what-every-tre...

chendragon• 6 years ago

This works well for me if the price is known in the beginning, but it probably necessarily varies. Perhaps itdoesn't matter in fine dining contects tho.

Swizec• 6 years ago

Isn’t this how high end michelin restaurants work? You sit down, eat the chef’s daily menu, and drop a few hundred dollars per person. You are there for the art of it and you trust the chef’s choice.

ashtonkem• 6 years ago

I believe it’s pretty common for prix fixe meals, or you’ll get a very narrow set of options.

mhh__• 6 years ago

Ideally yes, although I think they end up cooking for the guide rather than their own tastes.

There is a possibly apocryphal story that Marco Pierre White was once asked for a plate of Chips, so he hand cooked them and charged the diner something like £100 for his time.

dan-robertson2• 6 years ago

It happens in some. I think I read it was more popular in the 90s (at least in France) to have a single daily menu.

Nowadays it is more likely there would be vegetarian or vegan options even if there is still a “single” menu.

Plenty of places will have some set menus and also let people order à la carte

Disruptive_Dave• 6 years ago

It's standard practice at good sushi spots. Omakase.

danpalmer• 6 years ago

Some types, yes, although the service is at such a high level that they are usually accommodating far beyond what you'd expect.

The restaurant might have a 7 course tasting menu with fixed items on it for example, but if you say you're allergic to shellfish, they'll often not just remove the shellfish from your dishes, but re-engineer or fully replace the dishes that contain shellfish so that what you're getting isn't any _less_ than what someone eating shellfish would be having.

km3r• 6 years ago

Reminds me of this one restaurant in Paris I visited a few years back. We were kinda off the main drag and see this place with a long line way out the door so we decide to walk over and check it out. Saw a tasty looking steak being served and the line seemed to be moving pretty quickly so we decided to wait it out. We quickly realized that no one there spoke any English, and we basically spoke no French. But we were determined nonetheless to see what it was all about.

So we get to the front of the line and the hostess seats us. The waitress walks up to us and quickly realized we don't know any French. So in broken English she asks "rare or well done?". After getting all of our preferences she quickly comes back with wine and steaks with a side of this delicious green sauce.

We were all throughly impressed by the steak/sauce and quickness of service. My dad made a joke that the only thing that could make this better would be another round of steak. And low and behold a second round appears and we all laugh at the irony. All in all a great expirence, though I still don't know what that place was called nor what that sauce was, but it sure was tasty and a unique & fun expirence.

vii2• 6 years ago

Single menu item steak frites restaurants are available in NYC and London and apparently Mexico City - https://relaisdevenise.com/ They import the secret sauce from France.

These restaurants also make it easy to split the bill as everybody has the same thing!

GoRudy• 6 years ago

Le Relais de l’Entrecôte

Gys• 6 years ago

I remember a similar restaurant in Genevé and apperently the sauce has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_de_Paris_sauce

madeofpalk• 6 years ago

One of my favorite dining experiences when travelling around Spain was in this small coastal town, going into a restarant and asking on the off chance if they had a menu in English, which they didnt and then just set out to order me a complete 7 course dinner of pheonominal food.

Before this I didn't like salmon sashimi, and one of the dishes was like beetroot cured (i think?) salmon tartare and it was delishish and finally put me onto sashimi

3guk• 6 years ago

I’m gonna guess it was Le Relais de L’Entrecôte, I went a number of years ago and I must admit I really enjoyed the simplicity of it all !!

megablast• 6 years ago

Main drag in Paris? There is no such thing. Do you mean the champs élysées?

tptacek3• 6 years ago

You can do this at any non-chain restaurant, and just order whatever they think is good. It's almost always a good idea.

dan-robertson2• 6 years ago

I would always worry that I would get whatever is in surplus rather than whatever they think is good.

On the other hand, if everything they make is good then you’re fine and if their food is hit and miss then who’s to say you’d have a better chance of getting something good through analysis of the menu

vmception4• 6 years ago

I used to do dinner parties like that at restaurants: remove choice from my friends and tell the server a list of things we'll get, and then we have a bunch of things on the table family style.

Don't worry about what can go wrong and live a little. It is an amazing experience for many.

Cerium• 6 years ago

The opposite of this is common in restaurants in China, particularly rural restaurants. You enter and are invited into the kitchen area where you discuss what ingredients they have and approve suggestions for dishes. I enjoy it, though the pressure to make fast decisions can be overwhelming with the language barrier.

pjmorris2• 6 years ago

One of my favorite meals, ever, was like this, at 'House of Nanking' in SF. The host asked if the six of us had ever eaten there before, and when we said 'No', he said he'd take care of everything. Half a dozen dishes later (+/- 1 or 2, it was 20 years ago), we were amazed, happy, and full. 10/10.

tcpekin• 6 years ago

I had the exact same experience there about 20 years ago as well with my family... was fantastic.

OkGoDoIt• 6 years ago

How do you account for price in that situation? When I choose what I’m going to order at a restaurant, it’s not simply based on what I think would taste best, it’s about the ratio of price to tastiness. Whenever a waiter recommends something, it’s almost always one of the most expensive items on the menu. In fact at this point I avoid recommendations because I assume waiters are simply trying to optimize for profit and not actually what I would enjoy eating.

canjobear• 6 years ago

As of ~5 years ago they have a menu, but you don't have to use it: you can just tell them to order for you.

dpeck• 6 years ago

One of my favorite places to eat growing up, and a favorite of my dads until the virus started, was a place like that that started as a halfway house.

Shared tables, food keeps being brought out in family sized bowls, serve yourself as much or as little as you like, pay when you leave. Some of the best veggies and probably the best biscuits I’ve ever had.

It was a great little egalitarian place, suits, white collar, manual labors, and ex-cons would be sitting around the table enjoying a meal.

gbuk2013• 6 years ago

I just visited a restaurant like this in Calabria a few days ago - you turn up and they just bring you food, most of which is produced by them or nearby. It was awesome. :)

sbmthakur• 6 years ago

In India, we have something called 'Bhojnalaya' that comes close to your definition. The options are fixed for the day, the food is prepared in the kitchen and served right outside their house.

29athrowaway• 6 years ago

Having a separate menu for alcohol will be appreciated by dealing with alcoholism.

I do not suffer from alcoholism but I have met people dealing with it.

vmception4• 6 years ago

In San Francisco everywhere has QR codes and the same format.

I've had wine and charcuterie: food and separate drink menu on two different QR codes.

It's not perfect, many times the checkout system is haphazard, doesn't make use of Apple Pay or anything built into the phone. Requires user to input their table number into the checkout process.

user5994461• 6 years ago

One thing I do not miss since not going to restaurant, not having to pick between ten items on the menu and trying to figure out how much the service charge will be.

woshea901• 6 years ago

I need this for my saas business!

phonypc• 6 years ago

This mostly rings hollow based on my experience as a diner and chef. The menu graphics especially; I read boxes last if at all, the most expensive item at every place I've worked sells quite well, unusual ingredients and dishes don't sell well, and why on Earth would I read the right side of a folding menu first?

rawoke083600• 6 years ago

The "change" I want to see in the world of menus is this: List desserts in order of size ! Biggest to smallest. Usually desserts are such a rip-off at restaurants, but when I do indulge, I want the biggest :)

chadash• 6 years ago

The underlying reasons for this are financial: Restaurants can’t bother with low-margin dishes. They have fewer employees on the payroll, so they want to be more efficient with a smaller set of meals. They’re prioritizing fewer — and cheaper — ingredients.

I’m sure they are thinking about margins, but more generally, I think the issue is probably one of volume. If you have 25% as many people, maybe you remove unpopular items from the menu so that you aren’t ordering ingredients for them. For example, I have no idea whether oysters are high margin or not, but I suspect that people aren’t ordering them much for take out, so it doesn’t make sense to have them on the menu.

coredog64• 6 years ago

To expand on this a bit, multiple people in the business have told me that you can’t really buy much that only goes into one entree. So if you’re buying breaded chicken, it’s the same thing for your salads, your sandwiches/wraps, and any plated item. If one menu item isn’t moving, you can use your inventory on the others.

Obviously there are exceptions: Burger joints don’t need to do this with hamburger patties. Or you may buy a limited quantity of something you’re 100% sure is going to sell.

seumars• 6 years ago

Embarrassing reading. I find it hard to believe there's a "science" to menu design that has its own "experts" who don't mention a thing about typography or graphic design. The Z pattern is simply related to the language the menu is set, which for languages of latin origin (and obviously many others) is left-to-right, top-to-bottom. Adding boxes for attention does the opposite most of the time because people will read text in that same fashion. Meaning that if you place a box between two text blocks, it's easier to jump over the box and continue reading the block below than having to find the (now indented) first line inside the box and then having to find the first line of the block below once again. The box breaks the pattern your eyes have been following up to that point. And on, and on, and on...

overcast3• 6 years ago

Minimalist menus would be the best thing to happen to most of restaurants. My favorite places are single page , single sided, list of perfected dishes. Especially the ones that change it up every couple of weeks. Less is more. I suggest anyone interested in that concept read "The Paradox of Choice". Too many options leads people to be overwhelmed and miserable by their choices.

AtlasBarfed5• 6 years ago

The problem is people are picky, and in groups the effective pickiness increases.

So the bigger menus were likely to address dad, mom, teen, and kiddo.

If a restaurant is just going to make four or five dishes, it starts getting perilously close to places like Chipotle.

overcast3• 6 years ago

Those picky people end up ordering the same exact thing off of every menu. Keep that as one of your ten options. Satisfy the boring people, and provide better service to people with some culture.

chrisseaton4• 6 years ago

If a restaurant is just going to make four or five dishes, it starts getting perilously close to places like Chipotle.

Not sure what you're on about here?

You're comparing bistros and restaurants with highly focused, individual dishes that they're perfected... with slop from a junk-food place like Chipotle?

blaser-waffle2• 6 years ago

This is why every restaurant has chicken fingers

dsalzman• 6 years ago

I agree. People used to cook at home. Few restaurants could survive so they offered lots of variety. Now less people cook. The market can support more restaurants which should lead to more and more specialization.

lhorie2• 6 years ago

I hear chef celebrities say the same thing but frankly, these kinds of restaurants usually disappoint me, and precisely because of the paradox of choice.

Good chinese restaurants are the literal opposite of that philosophy: multi-page menus with hundreds of choices.

I don't want to pick between a meat I want but cooked in a way I don't care for vs a meat I don't want as much but cooked in a way I prefer. And that's why the chinese restaurants with large menus excel: they pretty much have every possible permutation and then some.

huffmsa2• 6 years ago

Right but the preparation for the meats doesn't really vary between most dishes and they're added as the last step.

Big marinating dishes of beef pork and chicken

9nGQluzmnq3M3• 6 years ago

I'd beg to differ. Really good Chinese restaurants in China tend to specialize ruthlessly, selling only a few items.

If anything, the "matrix menu" where you have X proteins in Y sauces for X*Y stir-fry combos is usually a "restaurant smell" indicating that they don't really care about the end product (satay salmon, anyone?).

temporallobe2• 6 years ago

Yes, permutations is the key word here. Mexican restaurants tend to have this kind of food - where they combine just a few different base ingredients (flour or corn tortillas, meats, cheeses, beans, rice, and various sauces and toppings) prepared in various ways and just call them different things, the permutations of which could be in the hundreds. Italian food is very similar in that regard. For this kind of food, having large, multi-page menus might make more sense.

GuB-42• 6 years ago

I consider lack of choice in a restaurant a good thing, and I am not the only one.

And it is not just the paradox of choice.

Simply, if a restaurant offers 20 different dishes, it means each dish gets 20x less attention than if you had only one choice. Less fresh ingredients, less time perfecting the recipe and preparation. Serving only one dish makes things simpler and the restaurant is going to spend more energy making sure it is worth it.

About choice. When I go to a restaurant, I just want to eat something good. But I don't know what's good, it's not my specialty. But the chef is a specialist, he knows what's good, so I want to rely on his judgment as much as possible. Like everyone, I have personal tastes, but a good chef can easily make me change my mind about things I don't like.

Usually, what I think is the best is a 3 choice menu:

The specialty, the one that gets the most love and ideally the one everone should take.

The alternative, a completely different dish for those with different personal tastes.

And another, simpler dish for the picky eater. For example, it can be vegan if none of the other two are, free of allergens, kosher,... The idea is to not let that person down if part of a group.

boring_twenties• 6 years ago

My uncle told a story about some restaurant in Italy, where everyone is seated at the same fixed time, and the owner comes out and announces:

"Tonight, dinner will be rib eye steak. It will be cooked medium rare. If that doesn't sound good to you, please feel free to leave now."

knolax3• 6 years ago

When I go to eat I go to eat X food item and the restaurant is only a means to the end. If they don't have X food I'll just go somewhere that does serve X.

rubber_duck• 6 years ago

Simply, if a restaurant offers 20 different dishes, it means each dish gets 20x less attention than if you had only one choice. Less fresh ingredients, less time perfecting the recipe and preparation. Serving only one dish makes things simpler and the restaurant is going to spend more energy making sure it is worth it.

One of my favourite places has a decently sized menu (would say 40 items on there including starters/sides/deserts) while they aren't "the best" at anything, it's really good and I love the atmosphere.

I like the flexibility and that I can invite anyone there since the selection is varied and quality is reliable. I can't call my vegan sister to a smokehouse even if their ribs are the best I tried, can't take my wife to a fish restaurant but my friends could be in the mood for fish, I have no clue what my in-laws will want to eat when I have to take them somewhere, etc.

temporallobe2• 6 years ago

I was recently at a Rainforest Cafe (not my first choice but it’s a good place to bring guests for entertainment value) that had just reopened and they had a simplified one-page menu. I was surprisingly pleased since they normally had pages and pages of items, so many in fact that I usually just chose the burger. And guess what was on the new menu? A burger. Of course.

katzgrau• 6 years ago

There's definitely a place for restaraunts with bigger menus, especially when you're dining with kids or people who generally dont stray far from what they know. The probable gripe is when the restaraunt really sucks at making 80% of what's on the menu. Not always the case, but it does happen a lot.

unreal37• 6 years ago

Restaurants are investing heavily in QR codes.

Investing heavily in them? What does that even mean? QR codes are free. I haven't seen one relating to restaurants menu items, in my life.

Polylactic_acid5• 6 years ago

It feels to me like QR codes for public use have completely died. They exploded about 5 years ago while people would just scan marketing posters for the gimmick of scanning a qr code but I doubt anyone does that anymore.

9nGQluzmnq3M3• 6 years ago

I presume you're talking about America, since I can assure you that in Asia QR codes are alive and well. In China in particular everything is done with QR.

EE84M3i• 6 years ago

A lot of people in the US don't even know how to scan a QR code, and for the longest time (maybe still now?) the most popular mobile phone OSes didn't come with a built-in scanner.

cascom2• 6 years ago

I was at a restaurant in Houston and they ordered the dishes in each section by size (I.e. the appetizers started with the smallest dish and worked their way up in size)

cascom2• 6 years ago

The unfortunate fact is that if you’re a restaurant owner (putting aside ultra high-end for the moment) if you want to increase revenue, you can either turn tables faster or increase the check size, if you raise prices people either want higher quality or better value - quality tends to be lower margin, so restaurants usually opt for value (bigger portions)...which is not the best for our waistlines

kevindong2• 6 years ago

Enlisting the magic number for items per food category. At fast-food joints, it’s 6; for snazzier joints, it’s 7 appetizers/desserts and 10 main courses.

My first gut reaction to those stated prices was that the consultants hadn't adjusted their prices for inflation for at least a decade.

But then I looked at the (current menu) prices of the restaurants I went to in college and also my hometown (both in low-cost parts of the Midwest). It was only then that I realized NYC has made me accustomed to much higher prices.

Those numbers are substantially accurate in my college town and hometown. Meanwhile those numbers need to be adjusted upwards by 50-100% for NYC.

EDIT: My skimming of the article was poor; the quote refers to number of items per category not price per item per category. My anecdote remains true though.

tssva2• 6 years ago

Those are prices. Those are the number of items available in each category.

tssva2• 6 years ago

Typo in my comment. Should be, "Those aren't prices".

x43b• 6 years ago

I interpreted that part of the article as having nothing to do with prices. Instead it was 7 types of appetizer items or 10 entrees.

joshuaheard• 6 years ago

Making menus smaller is a good idea in general. Every restaurant rescue show I watch recommends this. However, there's a better idea for more profitability: make portions smaller.

Polylactic_acid5• 6 years ago

Only if its a problem. There is an Asian resturant I go to which has 7 pages of menu and everything I have picked has been superb.

aaron695• 6 years ago

All these stories about "menu engineers", and probably this new profession seem to come from

Menu Mind Games (2009)

https://nymag.com/restaurants/features/62498/

adatavizguy• 6 years ago

I wonder if the Cheesecake Factory and Applebees use A/B testing with their menus the same way Netflix uses A/B testing? There is probably a huge demand for data driven decision making for restaurants rather than these spares studies mentioned in the article which most likely are anecdotal. Simply have four different menus with the same items and look at the analytics provided by point of sale system. That is a fun start - up idea.

Most of your favorite restaurants in places like San Francisco, Portland, and New York City engineer their menu by removing least popular menu items once a month or once a season and replace them with what they think their customers currently demand at a price to insure that the restaurant is running at the point of highest efficiency. There are other considerations such a cost of product but most restaurants increase overall demand by using analytics from the point of sale system and the most profitable dishes are not always the most popular. Engineering a kitchen -- and dining room for that matter -- to be efficient without cooks tripping over each other is another whole discussion nonetheless even this ties into what can be added to the menu.

The two biggest mistakes an independent restaurant can make is hard coding a menu and putting the word in Bistro or Basserie in the restaurant name -- the restaurant can't evolve after that. Have any of you been to La Folie on Polk and Green in Russian Hill? That restaurant first opened as a casual French Bistro but the demand was for their caviar by the ounce and Tournedos Rossini which oddly enough was not only their most popular menu item but also not on the menu. So in the mid nineties the average customer was spending $150 - $300 instead of $40 per person.

alexpotato• 6 years ago

I wonder if the Cheesecake Factory and Applebees use A/B testing with their menus the same way Netflix uses A/B testing?

This article from Atul Gawande would lead me to believe that they(Cheesecake Factory) have probably tried it: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/13/big-med

They even have revenue forecasting models that take into account: weather, time of year, holidays etc and that article is from 2012.

PS I highly recommend that article for both the medicine to restaurant comparisons and the parallels one can draw to complicated systems in general like IT.

rhacker• 6 years ago

It's not a bad idea. I mean, you still see these long lines at In'n Out, and it's funny because they're all buying the exact same item. We'll there's maybe 2 possible main courses, but by and large it's people buying different toppings of a cheeseburger and fries.

That business model probably did well for McDonalds when they first opened their doors. All of these restaurants have that identity too.

Wendy's - Square Burgers

Carl's Jr. Double Western Bacon

IHop - Stack of cakes

I mean it's very reasonable for most restaurants to take this time to go back to identity restaurants instead of catering to the picky people, which, let's be honest, are the ones that stopped eating out when Covid hit.

wombatmobile• 6 years ago

Under "capitalism", the aim of menu design is to maximise profits for the restaurant owner.

Imagine a system that maximises the health and happiness of patrons, the enjoyment and satisfaction of work by employees, and the sustainability of the business.

The people who build it will need more than menu design.

jinushaun• 6 years ago

This article perfectly describes the types of menu that I loath to see at restaurants. It’s not an exaggeration when I say I always complain about these menus in person whenever I encounter them because I find them so hard to read. But question is… do these gimmicks subconsciously still work on me?

The “menu engineers” who optimize restaurant revenue

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