Most typical errors in restaurant menu design you must be aware of!
Having the perfect menu is more crucial than ever as more and more restaurants battle for their fair share of clients. So be very cautious while curating the menu booklet for your restaurant.
The menu is the most effective tool of communication for a restaurant. It not only welcomes guests to your restaurant and showcases your culinary selections, but it also reinforces the idea and persona of your brand. But to do so successfully, it must be built in a specific way. Before selecting an item from a menu, customers only browse it for 109 seconds. Therefore, the design of the restaurant menu impacts not just the diner experience but also the restaurant profits hinges on it. Unfortunately, there is a lot of room for error in this "apparently" straightforward handbook, which many restaurateurs opt to ignore.
Given below are some of the most common restaurant menu design mistakes we see:
- Placement of menu items: Profitable products that are haphazardly placed lose value. Consider each item in terms of its profit margin and desirability since menu engineering is a crucial step in realizing profit potential. A menu's most popular and lucrative products ought to be at the top and readily visible to customers. These expensive goods frequently belong to the same category, such as seafood or steak, making them simple to arrange. Customers may be more inclined to choose other dishes if the most profitable items aren't highlighted, which could result in missing out on potential profits.
- Avoid Photos That Are Unappealing or Blurry: Indeed, a picture speaks a thousand words. A fantastic image placed in the perfect setting can whet customers' appetites and increase sales. Don't take images of your signature meals that are blurry or have poor resolution. For a balanced, polished appearance, make sure that the size and shape of each photo are the same across your menu.
- Tell guests what's in your dishes: A menu without descriptions is likely to alienate customers and cause your waitperson undue stress. It's a good idea to specify ingredients just to be safe because vegetarians and allergy sufferers can be picky about what they eat.
- Confusing menu copywriting: Customers frequently find menu descriptions written by the chef perplexing as opposed to those prepared by a professional copywriter with the chef's help. The main objective of a menu is to maximize earnings, and customers will benefit far more from menu descriptions if they are presented in an enticing way rather than just being technically correct. A chef is considerably more likely to write in specialized terminologies that other chefs would understand but that non-culinarians would not completely get.
- Avoid using difficult-to-read fonts: Beautiful script fonts can be used sparingly to make a menu design stand out. Sadly, they can also be challenging to read.
- Being without an online menu: Nowadays, a lot of individuals like to browse restaurants' menus online before choosing one. So be sure to post your menu online. The best way to do this is to display your menu on your restaurant's website. Make sure that your restaurant's online menu design is both mobile- and browsing-friendly. Don't upload it as a PDF instead.
Your menu should be easy to understand and clear because it will serve as your main tool of communication. Your menu can help you generate additional revenue and keep consumers coming back if designed wisely.