What is a good restaurant menu?
We have to look at the customer’s perspective to determine the factors that makes a good menu design.
Makes me hungry!
Everyone loves eating. It doesn’t mean that you will not be tempted when you are not hungry! A menu should make people hungry by just looking at it. Impossible?
No it isn’t. This is why the design industry is booming at the moment. A designer doesn’t mean that he/she is someone someone only good at drawing. Designers are people who can manipulate the minds of the consumers through psychology.
As you know, colours evokes emotions and therefore the choice of colours does make HUGE difference! It is not just about getting the colour correct, but also the colour combination and overall lighting of the restaurant. A menu can look perfect on the screen or print but may not look the same under certain restaurant lighting. This is a fact that many designers are forgetting and it always go to the cost of new restaurant owners.
The choice of colours shouldn’t come from the colour palette available from any design software but from the restaurant itself to create unity with the theme of the restaurant.
For example, restaurants dealing with grill and barbecue should always go for colours that you can get from the meat, ingredients or the flame! (Red tones for the rawness in the meat, brown for the delicious sauces, orange for the warm flame and don’t forget some black for the carcoal!)
Makes me spend on something worth spending on!
Whenever someone walked into a restaurant, they probably have an estimated budget. Targeting these customers will not an easy job. Of course unless you are not looking forward to their return.
Dealing with this matter will require some tricks. Things like Free drinks, Combo meals, Lunch Set, Student Price, Wednesday’s Special or even Couple Meals will do the job.Because customers feel that they are getting a discount from the normal price or maybe some additional freebies with their order. Most people would already know this by now but there are also other ways designer can help the restaurant such as coupons or vouchers for recent promotions.
Playing around with numbers is another useful trick. Have you ever seen menus without the $ sign in front of the price? A dish that cost $18 would have been written as 18.0 instead to avoid emphasizing on the fact that everything needs “$” money! and of course, customers will not feel the significant difference in price between 18.8 as compared to 18.0. Therefore avoid having items selling 18.0 when you can earn a few more pennies from each dishes even if it is just 10 cents or 20 cents. You can always deduct this from their total payment to reduce dealing with too many coins.
Able to orders easily and minimize errors
Categorizing a menu is the basic thing a designer should do. It may sounds common to many people but categorizing is more than just having separating the menu to Main Course, Side Dishes, Appetizers and Deserts.
Having them categorized into alphabets and numbers will make ordering and taking orders a simple job. Some restaurants even allow customers to take orders by themselves filling up an order form.
To be able to see what am I ordering.
A picture says a thousand word. if you are doing that, make sure you really take a good photo! Although an average picture will also makes a difference but it will degrade the image of the restaurant.
I will definitely compare the price!
Who doesn’t? But how to make the price looks cheaper when it is already expensive?
Here is an example to best explain the strategy.
A100. Curry Chicken with Rice 20.5
A101. Fried Chicken with Rice 20.5
A102. Chicken Mushroom with Rice 20.5
A103. Sausage Omellete with Rice 18.5
A104. Spicy Bean Curd with Rice 20.5
Seems like A103. Sausage Omellete with Rice is the cheapest at 18.5! People who are saving on their budget will definitely choose that. But what if the designer told you that the original price was $15? It doesn’t make much difference does it? $18.5 is still cheaper than the others. But the restaurant earns $3.50 exta!!
Easy to read and understand!
Some menus are just too fancy with foreign language character which annoy the customers. I will not deny the fact that it may create a feel of authenticity but designers should not be overdone. Not everyone can pronounce them correctly and some people will avoid ordering something they couldn’t even pronounce!
Click here for a video on Menu Design
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