If you are planning a new opening, or if you want to make changes at your restaurant, consider creating or revisiting the menu. The article “Menu psychology: design, structure and pricing” will help you to understand the most important points to consider.
The restaurant´s menu plays a fundamental role as it represents the pricing list of the business, reflecting the concept.
Food and beverage´s choice and pricing are important for guests. This is part of the experience in the restaurant, with strong impact on the business.
If the waiter must have great communication skills for selling, the menu must be psychologically structured and designed. Yes, there is a marketing strategy behind the menu and the menu engineering is a studied science.
In this article we will list the most important points to consider by establishing a new menu, in terms of psychology.
Menu psychology: design, colors and structure
The first step is to choose the number of pages: it depends on the list of dishes and beverages available. Normally never list too many dishes as guests might spend too much time by choosing while confused. On the other hand, proposing very few dishes isn´t the best idea. Normally a choice of maximum 8 dishes is perfect: in this way the guest has the feeling to have alternatives.
Moreover, some restaurants are preferring different menu: one for food only, one for dessert and one for beverages. This can be a good idea in order to let guests focus on the specific products.
Colors are psychologically significant: part of the colors can be defined based on visual imagine of the restaurant. Otherwise there is the possibility to insert further colors. Colors are influencing the purchasing powers. For example green is used for vegetal products or bio, whereas red and yellow are catching attention.
Should the menu be a list or maybe can be more creative structured? This depends by the restaurant´s concept. In any case, there are some dishes which must be highlighted as the most profitable, such as the house speciality.
Highlighting dishes means either to put them in the middle or above on the top right corner.
Research says that our perspective by watching the first time at something goes from the middle to the top right.
Down left corner is the appropriate spot for the less profitable dishes or for dishes selling by itself.
By digital menus the strategy is similar, hence there is the necessity to pay attention how design and structure are visible on the phone: design must be always friendly.
By verbally menu, which personally I don´t really recommend, normally will remain in mind the first and last dishes only.
Pricing: approaches you should know
Alright choose the price is based on the market, competitors and standards. In this article we don´t want to focus on the price choice, but on writing prices.
Most of the businesses there are some cheaper products, occasions and more expensive products. In the restaurant the price conception works the same as for other businesses.
In this way, let´s consider the most common approaches.
The sequence of the dishes is important: if the most expensive alternative is highlighted or on the top of the list, another price will appear more reasonable. This is called “price anchoring”.
Moreover, if there are three price ranges as high, middle and low, most of the guests are more intent on choosing the middle price.
Other strategies are concerning the price writing.
For instance, there are some restaurants pushing the most profitable dishes by writing the digit 9 at the end: for example $29,00 or $ 39,90. This strategy is called “Charm pricing”.
Another tactic can be instead to write the price without decimal numbers. In this way, as the price is short, it can seems cheaper because the association short – low – cheap.
Furthermore, for some dishes the best choice is to write the price per “piece” instead per portion, or the price per person for dishes available starting from 2 guests. In this way the price will seem cheaper.
Pricing, design and structure are connected and must work together with the entire restaurant´s concept. If the menu is not working, can be revisited. Please never be afraid to try anything new, because the important is to understand if something is working for your business.
Written By
Knowess International
Knowess International helps business owners and department heads working in the hospitality and restaurant industries to develop the necessary skills with targeted consulting.
