A successful restaurant owner may wear many hats, from line cook to interior decorator. It's easy to neglect the restaurant's menu simply because a good owner has so much else on his or her mind. That is a mistake that can be fatal to restaurants. According to Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, more than half of the restaurants that open one year are closed three years later, and it's mostly because of the food.
Go With Your Strengths
When designing a menu, go with the strengths of your restaurant. If your executive chef is a genius with fish, concentrate on delectable salmon and tilapia dishes rather than steakhouse, bar or comfort-food fare. Interview your staff. Find out what they love to cook-- the dishes that really light their fires--and what they think they can cook the best. Design the dishes on your menu around their strengths. If they love to cook, the quality of your food will go up. Conversely, hire only chefs and line cooks that share your vision for the restaurant.
Know The Area
To build a successful menu, look outside the restaurant first into the surrounding neighborhood. If your customers aren't going to eat what you're going to serve, even the most gourmet menu will be unsuccessful. Restaurant design consultant Richard Stolarczyk told Foodservice Equipment & Supplies magazine that
serving food that's too haute or gaudy for a "blue-collar" neighborhood will only drive people away; likewise, go too cheap and quick in a place where people expect higher quality, and you won't get the crowds you need to keep your restaurant open.
Keep It Small
One of the major mistakes that unsuccessful restaurants make, Stolarczyk said, is "overextending" their menus by offering many different kinds of food on a huge menu. Instead, good menus are small: They focus on common ingredients and quality rather than quantity. For example, Brandon O'Dell of O'Dell Restaurant Consulting, a business that assists struggling restaurants, told Restaurant Report that "trying to please everyone leaves you unable to be defined," and that if there's too much on the menu "your customers find it harder to describe you and recommend you."
Instead, stick with a small menu that concentrates distinctive signature dishes that stand out and that will keep your customers coming back for more. Plus, a small menu will enable you to control your costs and increase consistency in the customer's experience.
Keep It Simple
Like a small menu, O'Dell also recommends "small" dishes, keeping the number of ingredients involved in each recipe low and the cooking process simple. This will allow the kitchen to expedite the cooking process and serve more customers faster because there are fewer steps. "A ticket will only go out as fast as its slowest dish," O'Dell said. "Let the ingredients be the stars and don't lose them in a mishmash of flavors."
