Maximize Your Restaurant’s Profitability With Menu Engineering

As a restaurateur, one of the most powerful tools you have for controlling profitability is your menu. Menu engineering is the strategic process of using data and psychology to design your menu to maximize your profits. It’s about more than just food costs; it’s about understanding which items are most profitable and popular, and then designing your menu to sell more of them.

“A menu isn’t just a list of what’s for dinner—it’s a strategic tool. Done right, it highlights what you do best, guides customers toward those choices, and drives profitability in ways across-the-board price hikes never could.” Patrick Cairoli, Gordon Food Service Commercial Segment Lead

The process can be broken down into three simple steps:

1. Collect Data: Gather information on what you’re selling.
2. Assess Items: Classify your menu items based on profitability and popularity.
3. Menu Re-Design: Re-engineer your menu to boost sales of your most profitable items.

Let’s dive into the four categories you’ll use to classify your menu items.

The Four Quadrants of Menu Items

By assessing both an item’s profitability and popularity, you can classify it into one of four categories:

• Stars (High Profit, High Popularity): These are your most successful items. To keep them shining, highlight them on the menu, promote them with your staff, and be cautious about changing their price or recipe.
• Plowhorses (Low Profit, High Popularity): These items are popular but don’t bring in a lot of profit. The goal is to make them more profitable. Try moving them to a more visible area on the menu and consider a small price increase to improve their profitability.
• Puzzles (High Profit, Low Popularity): These dishes are profitable but aren’t selling well. You need to solve the mystery of why. Get customer feedback, consider a recipe reformulation, adjust the price, or offer them as limited-time specials to test their popularity.
• Dogs (Low Profit, Low Popularity): These items are not selling and aren’t profitable. Consider removing them from the menu entirely. If you want to keep them, get feedback, or try reformulating or adjusting the price.

Menu Psychology: The Art of Placement and Design

How you physically design your menu can have a big impact on what customers order.

• Eye Gaze Motion: People don’t read a menu like a book; they scan it. For a single-panel menu, the eye typically moves from the top right to the top left and then down the page. On a tri-panel menu, the “golden triangle” refers to the center, top-right, and top-left areas, which draw the most attention.
• Visual Cues & Color: Use visual elements to your advantage. For example, a box around an item can draw special attention to it. Using specific colors can also influence a customer’s choices; green can suggest freshness, orange stimulates appetite, and red is a call to action.
• Pricing: Avoid using a dollar sign ($) on your menu as it reminds people they are spending money. Also, consider using even numbers, which can be seen as more “trusted,” while odd numbers can convey a sense of precision, great for limited-time offers (LTOs).