What is a restaurant menu?
In a restaurant, the menu is a list of food and beverages offered to customers and the prices. A menu may be à la carte – which presents a list of options from which customers choose – or table d’hôte, in which case a pre-established sequence of courses is offered. Menus may be printed on paper sheets provided to the diners, put on a large poster or display board inside the establishment, displayed outside the restaurant, or put on a digital screen
Power of a good menu design
Restaurant menu designs can enhance the dining experience, help customers make satisfying choices, and stimulate appetite. However, a menu is more than just a list of the dishes a restaurant has available; it’s a powerful piece of branding capable of communicating a restaurant’s identity and driving profit—if it’s well designed.
How to Make a Restaurant Menu
List down all the food items you want your restaurant to serve. Using Excel, a Google Sheet, or even pen and paper, list out all of the meals you want to offer. Google Sheets is great for this, because it’s easy to cut, copy, and paste different items, and the sheet will save automatically.
Categorize all the items section-wise. For example appetizers, starters, main courses, desserts, Indian food or Continental food, health section, kids section and there can be many more according to what you want to offer. Then decide which section you want to prioritize the most, and which section you want to highlight on top, and on that basis prepare an order in which you’ll place the sections on the menu.
You need to now put up the prices of the items on the menu. Price is a big thing in how you portray your restaurant identity. Keep yourself in the customer’s shoes before putting up prices. Analysis of which items are the best selling, which items are demanded more, and what are your specialties, on that basis decide prices.
Consult the chef behind the dishes and think about the stories behind each and every dish. The inspiration for its creation, the sourcing of its ingredients, the effort it takes to make – and write down a short description of each menu item on your sheet. Consider what a new customer would be picturing if they were reading your menu for the first time. What may seem obvious to you might not be so clear to a newcomer. Think about what questions or clarification a guest may need and add those descriptions to your restaurant menu.
Now it’s te to focus on your menu’s graphic design. It plays a very crucial role as it will attract customers, present your business and create an identity in customers' minds of your servings. a color scheme for your menu that reflects your restaurant brand. This can be as simple as choosing three colors you might want to see on the menu, or deciding that you want your menu to be black and white to save money on printing.
Now comes the hard part: translating all your hard work on that sheet into a menu design. If you’re hiring a designer, simply giving them your menu item spreadsheet and color scheme makes their life so much easier. If not, you can use software like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Powerpoint, or Adobe Suite, and use these menu templates as a jumping-off point.
You may want to include photos of your most profitable menu items, but these photos need to be high quality – and that quality needs to translate to print. You may have to hire a food photographer to take these photos because low-quality photos can be worse than no photos. If you choose to hire a photographer you can also use those photos on your social media.
You have a color scheme, a general idea of how you want your menu items to be laid out on the page, and possibly a few photos you want to include. Now, it’s time to put it all together to create a restaurant menu. Choose what your menu should look like, what fonts should be placed, how the spacing should be done, and the composition. Also, don’t forget: updating your menu regularly should be easy. If you don’t leave space to add or remove menu items over time, especially if your menu changes seasonally, then you may have to start this whole process over again.
Come up with a few design choices to share with your business partners and staff, and vote on which you think is best for your restaurant brand. Select a layout you think will work best for your brand image and sales. Make it look as pleasing and attractive as you can but also keep it aesthetic and classy.
Finally, it’s time to print your restaurant menu. But first – take a moment to proofread your menu and send it to someone who hasn’t been staring at it for the past week. One misplaced comma or small typo could change your guests’ perception of the restaurant. Don’t skip this step, because if you do, you could waste a lot of money printing menus that will just end up in the trash.
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