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A good menu does more than just list the food served at a restaurant along with the prices. A good menu reflects the character of the restaurant, as well as its decor. A good menu makes even the most mundane dish sound new and exciting. A good menu attracts the diner's eye to certain parts of the menu you don't want the diner to miss. Because of these factors, a good menu will help maximize a restaurant's profits.

The first step in designing a menu is to create a list of the dishes you want to serve as well as the prices. However, this is only the beginning of this project. The next step is to decide what names and descriptions you want to use for each dish. For instance do you want to call a meal a hamburger with cheese and bacon, or do you want to call it a Western Cheeseburger? Do you want to describe a tostada as a flat taco with lettuce and tomatoes topped with cheese and beans, or do you want to refer to it as an exotic blend?

The next step has to do with an initial draft of the menu layout. How many pages? How large should the text be? Do you want to use pictures? How many columns do you want to use? Where and how much white space should you use? All of these are factors to consider at this preliminary stage of the game.

The decisions on each of these factors can affect the profits of your restaurant. If you give the most interesting dish names to your more expensive dishes, this will subconsciously convince the diner that these are the better dishes.

Using different sizes and styles of text, in conjunction with white space can direct the diner's eye to the most profitable part of the menu. If you make the grilled cheese sandwich the most prominent item on the menu, people are more likely to order that, and less likely to order a full dinner. If the children's menu is shown prominently, adults are more likely to request that they be allowed to order off of it.

The location of side dishes is a very important issue to consider. If diners at your restaurant are likely to order a side dish instead of a full dinner, you won't want to make the side dishes too obvious. If, on the other hand, diners are more likely to order a side dish in addition to a full meal, you will want to make these very obvious.

Used optimally, your restaurant's menu can help you maximize profits in a number of ways. Initially, it sets the tone and character of your restaurant, helping the diner to feel more at ease. Then, it names and describes dishes in a way that makes them more appealing, with the mores expensive ones sounding the most appealing. And finally, it helps to direct the eye of the diner to the part of the menu with the most profitable or popular dishes.

Learn more about this author, Frances Simon.
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