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Optimizing Your Carryout and Delivery Menu

Even though government restrictions regarding on-premises dining have relaxed, many concepts are still experiencing higher demand for carryout and delivery service now than they were pre-COVID. And with the Delta variant of the virus taking its toll in many parts of the country, off-premises dining is likely to ramp up again. For many operators, it will continue to be a significant percentage of sales.

Here are the numbers. According to a recent National Restaurant Association survey, 60% of U.S. consumers say they order carryout or delivery food at least once a week, with 31% saying they order from a third-party delivery service.

The Right Stuff

Regardless of stye of service, operators are paring down the number of menu items to emphasize quality over quantity. As costs of inventory and labor climb, limiting menus to more-popular and higher-profitability items makes sense. On one hand, it is Menu Engineering 101; however, there are added considerations when applied to a carryout and delivery menu. If you are not familiar with the basics of the process, this webinar can help you get started.

Menu engineering is the art and science of how and where to place items on the menu. Where items are placed on the menu can dramatically affect your bottom line. In this 60-minute workshop, using resources from our RestaurantOwner.com Resource Library, RestaurantOwner.com presenters Joe Erickson and Jim Laube will show you the three basic concepts behind menu engineering -- placement, graphics and profitability analytics.

Your first step in analyzing your carryout and delivery menu is to analyze your current off-premises sales for at least the previous three months. You will want to mine simple data: What are customers ordering? What items are not moving? Enter your product sales report into a spreadsheet to easily organize the information and, if you wish, present it graphically in a chart.

Next, comb through your online reviews for customer comments on your carryout and delivery service. You might find consistent threads of kudos and complaints that tell you something is working well or poorly. If you maintain a database of user email addresses, you can elicit a much larger pool of responses with a simple survey to find out what customers really think about your services. It also provides an opportunity to connect with customers to show them you care about their business and want them to help you serve them better.

The sales and profitability data could be misleading if you are selling a significant number of items that are disappointing your customers when food arrives on their kitchen tables. When planning a carryout and delivery menu it is only natural to think "this item is our most popular dish for dine-in guests and it is pretty profitable, so we need to offer it for takeout." Yet if the presentation is a mess when it reaches your guests' kitchens it can drag down the value of a signature item.

The upshot is you want to find the intersection between popularity, profitability, and travel worthiness -- items that can be packaged up, shipped across town, and will still taste and look good. Small wares are an important part of your ambience, budget and guest experience. Likewise, you should carefully consider your carryout and delivery containers, including what they say about your concept, their cost, and their influence on your customers' experience.

Contain Yourself

If you hastily purchased containers just to ramp up your carryout and delivery service quickly, you might research what is now available, and what containers compliment your menu. Also, consider your brand image. If you are a casual upscale restaurant, you don't want to send containers out the door looking as if it could have come from a food truck or quick-service concept.

On the other hand, containers are included in the cost of goods sold. In many cases, you can customize pedestrian containers to improve their image. An example includes a personalized message from the chef, written on the bag with a Sharpie®, thanking the customer for his or her business that can boost the image. Consider a hand-calligraphy note reminding the cus- tomer to contact the restaurant and providing a telephone number to report if anything is not satisfactory with the order. Some items travel better when they are partitioned, then require some assembly at their destination. For example, items with dressing and sauces. If the assembly is intuitive and not excessive, guests will not object if the end result is a better meal.

An important quality control practice is to dine in your own restaurant and view the service from your guests' perspective. You might want to apply the same practice to your delivery menu. Order every item off the menu as if you are just another customer. See how it travels on the way home or arrives at your door via delivery. Be the harshest critic imaginable.

Bear in mind most consumers are not harsh critics and understand that products they order for carryout and delivery will not be as good as they are in the restaurant. But they also want what they order to make it home and be better than they would make for themselves. If they are not satisfied, they might not share their disappointment with you, but simply go away. Or they might broadcast their dissatisfaction on social media. Many bad reviews can be avoided by simply trying out everything you sell before you sell it.

Food for Thought

According to the "DoorDash State of Flavor" report and Grubhub's list of the hottest dishes of 2020, below is a partial list, in order of popularity, of some of the most demanded items via delivery. These might not fit your concept or market, but the list provides some illumination of what items have appeal and travel well. And before you dismiss any of them as being "too basic", consider how you might turn them into something that is a good fit for your concept and market.

• Chicken Fingers -- DoorDash reports chicken fingers and fries as the number-one ordered food item for 2020. This shouldn't be a surprise at all, since fried chicken items travel well, and still taste good, especially when dipped in a sauce. Sure, at first blush, we think of chicken fingers as something in the frozen food section of the supermarket or on a kids' menu at a quick-service concept. What about mini chicken and waffles or coconut popcorn chicken with sweet Thai chili lime sauce?

• Chicken Sandwich -- And yet another fried chicken item. The problem with this menu item is every quick-service concept is engaged in the "chicken wars", trying to top their competitors' chicken sandwich. Yours better stand out from the others as well. A chicken sandwich can be like the Chick-Fil-A offering everyone enjoys. Or it might be a sauteed chicken breast topped with a mayonnaise, mustard and rosemary spread on garlic rosemary focaccia bread.

• Mac and Cheese -- Comfort foods are king, especially when times are tough. The thing about Mac and Cheese is that it's a difficult product to make from scratch for most people, so they would prefer to order it out. The products in a box from a grocery store are not great when cooked at home. In addition, you can add interest and sophistication to this all-American item with combinations of cheeses, such as gruyere and cheddar.

• Sushi -- This was a bit of a surprise; but it does make sense, since carryout and delivery foods are eaten immediately and it can travel nicely. Unless you have an Asian concept, it is unlikely to be a good fit for your menu. That said, chefs have been blending ethnic cuisines to create items such as Mexican sushi burritos.

• Asian Food -- Second maybe only to pizza, Chinese food is the trailblazing Lewis and Clark in carryout and delivery. Other Asian items have become popular and good travelers, such as Pad Thai. Step away from the in- gredients and consider the presentation. Rice, grain and noodle bowls travel well, adapt to a variety of cuisines, and are easy to prepare.

• Veggie Burgers -- Plant-based products are in, and it looks like they're here to stay. Grubhub orders for plant-based burgers have risen 291%, nearly catching the spicy chicken sandwich and its 299% growth in 2020. If you offer burgers, you likely need a vegetable-based burger. Otherwise, you could be losing burger veto of the one member of the family is a vegetarian.

In many cases, you can customize pedestrian containers to improve their image. An example includes a personalized message from the chef, written on the bag with a Sharpie®, thanking the customer for his or her business that can boost the image. Consider a hand-calligraphy note reminding the customer to contact the restaurant and providing a telephone number, if anything is not satisfactory with the order.

• Mexican -- Mexican food in general is a leading choice for food deliveries, with both tacos and burritos topping the charts. According to the Uber Eats 2020 Cravings Report, tacos and burritos were top recipients of both delivery and carryout food requests. You can offer some terrific tacos and burritos with a fusion flair. Consider Korean beef tacos.

• Breakfast Sandwiches -- A simple egg, cheese and sausage biscuit was the top rising item on DoorDash deliveries, seeing a 2,872% increase in popularity. It travels well and the cost of goods sold is low. Easy to make, and fits nearly any restaurant style with a little creativity, putting take out breakfast on your menu makes perfect sense. You might not want an on-premises day-part, but you could add to your sales with a limited carryout and delivery breakfast service.

• Cinnamon Rolls and Donuts -- Food delivery orders for cinnamon rolls rose 205% on Grubhub and 1,450% on DoorDash, and donuts were right behind them. Of course, this isn't for every restaurant style, but I offer it on this list because of the rise in popularity. If you have a fryer in your restaurant, carnival style sugar donut holes are easy to make, and even easier to sell, as a possible dessert item.

• Pizza -- Always a favorite, pizza travels well, tastes great and feeds a lot of people. The only downside is the amount of competition because of the number of restaurants that offer pizza delivery already. To make this work, you would need a strong point of difference, and a reason for being in the pizza business. We have seen a lot of sports bars, American restaurants, Greek restaurants, and bars get into this business and do well with it. Just keep in mind, while pizza is very profitable, it is divided up among more than one person, so your plate contribution per person will go down when you sell pizza.

• Burgers -- American's love their burgers, especially from their favorite restaurant. Getting them home still fresh is key to success here. The best way to ship them off is with simple packaging. Wrap the burgers in a foil and paper wrapper, put the French fries in an open cup, stuff it all into another handful of fries for good measure.

KEEP LEARNING…

Food Delivery Webinar: How Independent Restaurants Are Responding to this Rapidly Growing Trend

Dining in is quickly becoming the new dining out. Studies show that dinner purchases from restaurants are increasingly consumed at home. In 2013, restaurant meals consumed at home was 33%, now it's over 50% and growing daily! What's even more telling is that there is no overall growth forecasted across the restaurant industry, meaning dine-in traffic in many markets, is actually shrinking.

The demand for delivery has been fueled, in part, by one of the fastest-growing technologies - third-party delivery. Delivery services like DoorDash, Uber Eats, Waitr and Grubhub, to name a few, provide consumers with a bevy of restaurant delivery choices from the ease and convenience of their smartphone.

There's no denying that delivery is having a major impact on many segments of the restaurant industry. As a result, many restaurants, both independents and chains alike, have turned to both in-house and third-party delivery to boost sales or preserve market share.

Many independents feel compelled to begin offering delivery or risk getting left behind. But there are challenges. Profitability, capacity, quality control, logistics, delivery options are just a few of the issues that operators face when deciding whether or to offer delivery.

In this webinar, we'll share the insights from nearly 1,000 RestaurantOwner.com members who are experiencing both the challenges and benefits of delivery.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

• How to deliver profitably
• 3rd-Party costs
• The most challenging delivery issues
• Most used third-party delivery providers
• Most prevalent delivery markets
• Key considerations when making delivery-related decisions

A PACKAGED DEAL

As carryout and delivery business continues to bloom, more attention than ever is focused on foodservice packaging. While the CDC issued statements that the risk of contracting the coronavirus from carryout and delivery food products is "very low," it's never a bad idea to seek out packaging that prioritizes food safety; e.g., seals well and resists tampering. Another trend that has been consistently popular in the past few years is a continued focus on sustainable packaging.

More than half of US consumers reported they are more likely to make a restaurant choice based on eco-friendly practices, according to the National Restaurant Association's State of Restaurant Sustainability 2018 report. Consider this before stocking up on Styrofoam. Consider how to avoid single-use plastics.

Beyond those recommendations, there is also the issue of putting your food into a package that will get the food home in better than average condition. Here are a few tips on getting your products ready for the short trip home with your best customers.

Fried foods do not like steam. Anything breaded or battered is going to be a problem in an airtight container. So, if you want to ship off fish and chips, make sure both the fish and chips can breathe on the way home. Think cardboard packaging rather than tightly sealed containers.

Bread doesn't like steam either. Just like fried foods, anything with a bun or sliced bread that has a hot ingredient in it is going to want to breathe on the way to its final destination. Burgers, grilled sandwiches, sub sandwiches, and the like are best sent on their way wrapped in a combination of foil and paper to keep them from getting soggy.

Pasta likes lots of sauce. If you are selling anything with pasta and a sauce, make sure you overdo the sauce a little. Unfortunately, pasta absorbs sauce as it sits in a container, so once it gets home, it may not look nearly as appetizing as it was when it left the restaurant kitchen. My advice, provide plenty of extra sauce on the side to add to the item. Your customers will love you for it.

And if you are selling a carryout or delivery salad, keep in mind, your customer is probably going to put the salad on their own plate. Some of the cleverer restaurant chefs are making the salads upside down, so when the customer plops the salad onto a plate, it's right-side up.

Desserts love to travel. So, make sure you are offering dessert. The best number of desserts to have on your menu is seven. We have learned seven is a magic number. HotOperator research shows that dessert sales are a bell curve. Six offerings sell less than seven, and seven sell more than eight.

Don't forget the side dishes. Side dishes represent incremental sales and allow customers to get a taste of other items in addition to their entrée. Make sure you promote those items to your guests when they order.