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The hospitality industry is a competitive service industry. By trying to do too many things, many restaurant owners are getting lost and in the bargain, it is their menu that suffers the most. Customers have anxiety over the restaurant menu designer boards.
The number of dishes on the menu peaked during 2013 with an average of more than 150 items on the menu.
The aim of this huge range of dishes was an attempt to distract their customers away from their competitors.
The extensive menu boards looked like reading a phone book with this many dishes. It also created an unexpected issue for the restaurants because it was not only stressful for the guests in selecting a dish but also negatively impacted the business.
Why Simplifying the Menu is a Good Idea
The long restaurant menu designer boards ruled the market for quite some time until the restaurant owners found that they were not able to do justice to their customers.
This was preventing their kitchen from specializing in certain quality dishes that attracted guests.
Poor food inventory management was denting into their profits
When the menus are cut down then there will be an enormous speed of service and operations. After all, the main aim of the hospitality industry is customer satisfaction. Restaurants who strive to simplify their menus will see happy customers.
If the menu gets simplified then the restaurants will know what they are doing and well they will do it incredibly well! Your menu will get narrowed down to the dishes you really excel in creating and also that your customers love. This will get you high profits as well as high popularity.
A simplified menu will mean that you can provide dishes of exceptional taste and your guests will long to come back. Streamlining your menu also ensures that the dishes you serve can be handled by your kitchen efficiently and quickly. There would be no burden on your staff, storage space, or kitchen equipment.
By offering only a few core dishes you can also work with less staff in the kitchen thus reducing labor costs. Other than labor costs, a small menu will also help in simplifying training. With fewer dishes to learn your kitchen staff will get trained more quickly.
Customers will also feel relieved on seeing a small menu as it helps in fighting off the decision fatigue that they normally face when they see too many choices. The decision process becomes easy and it also helps the customers to increase their perception of quality.
With online ordering in trend now a small menu will improve the online ordering process as it makes the selection quick. A lengthy online menu will make it difficult for the customers to navigate on the small screen of their mobile making it difficult for them to choose from the menu.
Small menus become easier especially if a third-party delivery app is involved or if you are adding a direct online ordering integration on your website.
Another important aspect of a small menu is that you know precisely which ingredient is required in how much quantity. It goes easy on your inventory and avoids over-ordering in the future. You could also order locally whenever possible as it helps to prevent wastage of food. This will save you a significant amount of money as well as time as you are focusing only on high-profit items.
Things to Consider While Reducing Your Menu
There are so many factors that go while deciding on your menu. These restaurant menu designer boards rule on your profits and losses. Click here to find out more.
Some factors which you should consider while reducing your menu are:
Choose dishes wisely – A few things to keep in mind while choosing the dishes on your new menu are profit, sales, and guest feedback. Do not make the mistake of choosing a dish that you think will perform best. Evaluate the past sales and customer feedback to find out the most loved dishes that your restaurant serves as well as what dish your customers would like to see coming up on your menu in the future.
Analyze your costs and pricing – The key to a successful food joint is in making sure that the kitchen is efficient and business is profitable. With the latest technology available so easily make use of software for inventory management and work out on the costs of the dishes that you want to include in the menu. Use this data as guidance to pricing your new dishes on the menu.
Design of the menu – Restaurant menu designer boards should be designed in such a way that the layout descriptions and item placements all attract the customers. Draw attention to your profitable dishes and use special fonts and styling to entice the customers.
Take care of the ambiance and service as this will also help in making up when you reduce your menu after all everyone likes to be pampered in a wonderful food surrounding!
Conclusion
Restaurant menus have been shrinking for years but the COVID pandemic has only accelerated the shift to offer a more curated list of items. People are still reluctant to visit a restaurant forcing restaurants to go for cost-saving changes such as doing away with high-cost items and lowering the margins. Small menus have taken the center stage now and it is found that when the number of items went down on the menu, several satisfaction factors increased. Customers are also happy with the small menu to drive as they like to opt for dishes they have already flavored rather than a new unknown dish.
