Restaurant Menu Design Tips to Follow

Having a great restaurant menu design, can really help elevate the dining experience. It helps customers choose the right dishes that will help them find an item to “Crave” because that is what makes them come back more than once or twice a year. Remember though, a menu is way more than a list of dishes your restaurant makes. It can also be used as a powerful marketing tool, that can help you gain exposure and increases business by effectively communicating your restaurant’s identity.

If a menu is well designed and certain items placed in certain spots of the menu, the goal is to have the customer select items that will raise the check total. Of course that also requires a trained staff.  Below we will discuss some essential restaurant menu design tips that can help increase your restaurants profits.

Photos: Yes or No?

Food photos can be very useful in certain types of restaurants. Photos taken properly and graphically placed can be very appetizing and powerful and may lead the customer to a higher profit food selection. On the other hand some operators try to take their own photos with their phones and they usually don’t reproduce well on the final printed menu. So, to answer the question Photos, yes or no. If you say yes, have them done professionally.

Forget about Currency Symbols

Studies have shown that people tend to spend more money when currency signs are omitted. I know it’s weird, but it is never really good to make customer realize how much they are actually spending on the food. A menu with no currency symbols may just squeeze out a little extra profit for your restaurant.

Typesetting menu content  and the two most important items to consider when designing restaurant menus.  

#1Readability   #2 Positioning food items

It’s understandable you want your menu to appear attractive and current but really that is not the most important issue. Readability and positioning the highest gross profit dishes is. I wear 250 reading glasses and the true test when I prepare a menu is if I can read it without my glasses its good.  As to positioning dishes the first few offerings at the top of a section is where the highest gross profit items should be. Some restaurants separate their dishes into sections.

For example Pasta, Seafood, Steaks etc.  But in some cases It may be better to list as one section ”Entrees” and list all main menu items.  This will expose the diner to all of the choices and as a result they may be enticed and tempted to try something else. Of course if your menu is very lengthy and you have over 25 or 30 entrees then it would be best to have separate sections.