A New Restaurant

This is a guest post from Erin at MustHaveMenus (http://www.musthavemenus.com), an online company that provides
restaurants with high quality menu designs. She blogs her thoughts on menu design trends and restaurant marketing strategies at ttp://blog.musthavemenus.com.Thanks Erin.  It’s great to get some insight from othersabout what it takes to succeed in the restaurant business.

Think a menu is just for ordering food? Think again! A menu communicates much for than just your food; it sets the tone for your customers’ dining experience.

Unfortunately, many new restaurants design their menu almost as an afterthought. I’m here to tell you that your menu should get as much attention as your dishes, the physical layout of the restaurant and your staff selections.

You don’t have to be a graphic designer or a marketing guru to create a menu that really grabs. Just incorporate the following five tips to create a menu that does more than just inform.

1. Establish and reinforce your identity – Are you opening a Spanish tapas joint focused on affordable nibbles? Your menu should be bathed in warm golden tones and rich reds and blues, not pastel pink and light green. A bistro serving simple, rustic Italian food should have a clean menu, with few decorations. A funky coffeehouse can jazz it up with colors and designs of all kinds. If you decorated your space with a theme in mind, repeat a variation of the theme on the menu. Remember, branding is essential for sticking in your customers mind and for repeat business.

1. Use the power of placement – There is a reason that appetizers are listed first, and it isn’t simply because they are served before the meal. Starters, which are notoriously low cost, high profit items, are placed at the beginning to catch the hungry customer’s eye. Relegate drink, sandwiches and other low cost items to the back of your food menu and make sure that the entrees and chef specialties are front and center.

1. Keep it simple, stupid – The clichéd acronym K.I.S.S. can be applied to menu design as well. Don’t overcrowd a menu by jamming everything on one sheet. Either pare the number of dishes you serve or add another page to the menu. Or, create a separate sheet daily for specials.

1. Proofread! – This isn’t a huge issue to many customers, but to the ones that care, it can make and break a visit. Typos, consistency errors and misuse of apostrophes are all commonplace in new restaurant menus, unfortunately. Eradicate these missteps from your menu by proofing your work, and by having someone else look your menu over as well.

1. Have it close at hand – You have your menu document nearby, ready to be updated and printed at a moment’s notice, right? After all, there is nothing worse than having your servers repeat over and over that an item is not available, or, even worse, have it crossed out on the menu.

Connecting with your customers through your menus is key if you are going to survive, much less thrive, in the restaurant biz.