A Menu That Sells
Sound familiar?
- Prices against the shop next door instead of against cost and the dish's role.
- Afraid to raise prices, believing guests will leave immediately.
- Doesn't know which dishes actually pay the rent, because only portions sold are counted.
- The menu only ever gets longer, never shorter.
After reading, you can
Help an owner raise average check by rearranging the menu before raising prices.
Each chapter answers one question
Chapter 1: Should a slow seller always come off the menu?
Which quadrant are my thirty dishes in?
Every dish sits in one of four boxes: popular and profitable, popular but thin-margin, slow but profitable, slow and thin-margin. Four boxes, four ways to act.
Chapter 2: Does anyone actually read my menu?
In the first ninety seconds, which dishes do my customers see?
Customers do not read the menu; they scan it in about ninety seconds.
Chapter 3: Is my price set by cost, or by its neighbours?
What do customers compare my prices with?
Price perception does not come from cost; it comes from which dish sits next to which.
Chapter 4: Do bigger bills come from pricier dishes, or one question?
Are my customers offered anything extra, and who offers it?
The bill grows when customers say one more word, not when they pick a more expensive dish.
Chapter 5: How often can the menu change before the kitchen breaks?
Do I revise the menu on a schedule or on a feeling?
A menu that never changes drifts away from purchase prices; one that changes constantly never lets the kitchen settle.