Food menu design continues to be the most underrated aspect of boosting any restaurant’s sales. Any menu, when designed with the right approach, can be used as a tool and an influence for making customers order more. So what are these secrets of F&B branding and menu design that you must know of? Right from logo design to menu pricing and including specials- everything is equally important. Let us go ahead and see what you need to keep in mind while creating the menu for your restaurant.

Keep your target customers in mind

The restaurant menu design must not be done with the consideration of only the chef or the owner. The customer must be kept in mind while designing the menu. While your vision of the menu is important, it is equally important to consider customer psychology while creating the menu. Your target is to create one that makes the customer want to order more.

Start by analyzing your target market- who are they and what would they like to order. What type of clientele are you expecting to frequent your establishment, what are their preferences, are they looking for just a quick meal or a memorable time as well? All these things will help you figure out what type of items must be a part of the menu and how must it all be priced.

Food menu costs

Costing is essential to F&B marketing. You need to strike the right balance between costing and affordability while pricing items on the menu. For every item, take into account all ingredients that are used to make it- even things like mayonnaise and ketchup, before you decide on the final cost.

The ‘menu food costing’ is the industry standard practice for calculating the final selling price. This is a sum of prices of all the ingredients used to prepare a dish, not including the labor costs of serving or preparing it. This does include the price for sourcing the ingredients, their delivery, return charges, and interest. It is recommended to keep the selling price around 30% of this menu food cost.

Another important consideration while deciding the menu costs is competition. Putting too high a price as compared to the competition means you risk driving away customers. Keep pricing in line with the competition to ensure sustainability and survival.

Be aware of customers’ ‘eye scanning patterns’

Research has indicated that customers read the menu like a  book- starting from the top left corner and going to the right. Use this while positioning the higher-profit menus instead of the old assumption that customer’s eyes are first drawn to the sweet spot at the upper-right corner. This is even more important for restaurants with an extensive menu. It must not be hard to read and customers should be able to find what they are looking for easily. An affordable graphic designer can help you design a menu with these patterns in mind.

Make it easy for customers to search

The menu must be designed with logically divided sections so that customers can easily go through and search in it. All items must be listed sequentially and they must be in logically divided sections such as appetizers, main course, beverages, etc. Start your menu with appetizers and create the way to desserts and beverages.

Food photography- use it sparingly in the menu

Food photography, if used in restaurant menu design, must be limited to only a few of the choicest dishes. High-end restaurants do not use a lot of photos of their dishes in menus for multiple reasons. It is important to leave the final quality of the food to the imagination of the customer- the same type of photography will not appeal to everyone.

If you must use photos, they must be from professional food photographers in Singapore and of extremely high quality. Use photos of only the special items and ensure that they match with the real thing as far as possible.

Use Decoys

If you are running a high-end or corporate restaurant, decoys can be one of the most effective prompts of making your customers order from a certain set. A decoy is a highly-priced dish that makes other dishes look more affordable in comparison. A decoy makes the customer shift attention to other soft spots in the menu, where the other highly-priced items do not seem as expensive.

However- do note that it only works for establishments that are into fine-dining or corporate setting establishment. For QSRs or places frequented by students, a decoy is more likely to chase people away altogether.

The Right Colors

Choosing the right colors as per the theme of the restaurant and your target audience can make quite the difference. Every color scheme has a different effect on the viewer, and this is why it is one of the most important aspects of creative graphic design.

Thus, with this, you now have quite an insight into how your restaurant menu helps boot sales. These are simple yet highly effective techniques that can be implemented to give you a growing customer base in a short time.