Best Practices

Restaurant Menu Optimization: Product Positioning, Highlighting, Anchoring, and Numbers

Printed menus remain popular, despite the many concepts that provide a QR code and direct guests to scan the items on their phones. Strategic menu design can help you promote specials and boost sales. Here are several tried-and-true restaurant menu optimization fundamentals to consider when creating or revising your menu.

Product positioning. The product’s location on the menu affects how well it will sell. We often hear the phrase “location, location, location” as the three key determinants of real estate value – including the value of restaurant space. Well, consider the “real estate” on your menu. Some places have better visibility and interest for your guests.

Think of a menu as a visual landscape, where guests’ eyes wander until they find a place to pause and take in the details. Now imagine the eye patterns and resting places as traffic patterns and scenic attractions. Higher ‘traffic’ in this case equals the places on the menu where people tend to direct their attention. And when guests rest their eyes in favored locations, the items there gain more visibility and are more likely to be ordered. The image captioned “Menu Landscape” illustrates the order in which guests tend to focus their attention.

Menu Landscape

Product highlighting. When we think of highlighting, we often picture using color to draw attention—much like a highlighter pen emphasizes key text. In menu design, this same principle applies. Using color strategically over text or around specific items can significantly influence what guests notice and ultimately choose to order. These techniques, refined through years of trial and error, have proven effective in influencing customer purchasing behavior.

Mental anchoring. Anchoring leverages the human tendency to fixate on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions. In the context of restaurant menu optimization, a visible item entry with an unusually high price, placed next to a more reasonably priced item, makes the latter seem like a better deal. We tend to compare the “anchor” with the rest of the menu items and feel less price pressure by comparison.

This could be a larger cut of meat than an average diner would prefer – priced at $60 per person. This makes the ample, yet smaller rib-eye priced at $25 seem like a good buy. A more whimsical, yet proven effective, example, is an Irish pub-concept menu breaking down the approximate cost of a vacation trip to Ireland including airfare and lodging. The message is that compared to a trip to Dublin, your place is a deal if you want authentic Irish pub fare.

The menu is the restaurant’s manifesto; it defines who you are and what you stand for.
– Paul Sorgule

Strategic pricing. Each item on your menu contributes to your gross income via volume (number of items sold) or margin (profitability of each item). You only have space on your menu and capacity in your kitchen to offer many items. Pricing them correctly is critical to maximize income and leave guests with the impression that your restaurant is a good value.

Here are menu pricing strategies restaurant operators have used to soften the effect of a price increase:

• Repackage the menu item. One menu pricing strategy for avoiding "sticker shock" pricing is changing how entrees and sides are offered. For instance, adding, changing, or eliminating a salad or side order provides new pricing opportunities that are not easily compared with the old menu pricing.
• Introduce new items. One of the most effective menu pricing strategies for masking price increases is periodically changing your menu. When you do, introduce new or seasonal items to go with the cornerstone items for which you are known. It is common for some restaurants to change their menu twice or thrice a year.
• Increase your special offering. One way to test the appeal of a new menu item proposal is to offer it as a special. Do not fall into the trap of simply discounting an existing item on your menu as the daily special; instead, allow the creativity of your chef or kitchen staff help you discover new menu opportunities. Specials can be conveyed to the guest in several ways, including verbal presentation, chalkboard, special menu board, or even a printed menu that changes daily.

Download these restaurant menu optimization resources from RestaurantOwner.com for more valuable menu pricing strategies and worksheets:

Menu Engineering Worksheet: This automated tool enables operators to assess the profitability of menu items by analyzing food cost, selling price, and popularity. It includes five worksheets covering various menu categories, from appetizers to desserts, providing a structured approach to menu assessment.

Menu Costing System: This system provides a structured method for calculating the cost of ingredients for each menu item, serving as the foundation for other systems like ideal cost analysis and menu engineering. It utilizes a Microsoft Excel worksheet to list and compute ingredient costs, facilitating accurate menu pricing and profitability analysis.

Menu Costing Basics Course: This course guides managers and owners through implementing a menu costing system using the Menu & Recipe Costing template. It offers step-by-step instructions from setup to execution, including best practices for daily operations, ensuring accurate cost calculations and informed pricing decisions.

Have a profitable week!

The RestaurantOwner.com Team