Take inspiration from the restaurants and businesses around you to develop a sense of what works in this area.
If you’re restaurant is open all day, you may want to have a morning menu (breakfast/lunch) and an evening menu (lunch/dinner). Don’t forget about beverages!
A premium cut of steak Roasted goose An exotic fish Dishes that a little harder to make, such as Spanish paella Specialty entrées for two
Make sure your menu names fit with the concept of your restaurant. For instance, an upscale bistro might not want comedic food names.
This works best if you use an Excel Spreadsheet or Google sheet. If you don’t have access to any kind of spreadsheet, you can do this on a sheet of paper.
Breakfast Appetizers Lunch Main courses Soup and salad Pasta Vegetarian Specialty Beverages and/or cocktails
The dish is hotter/spicier than most of the other dishes on the menu. The dish contains any ingredients to which some people are severely allergic (e. g. peanuts). The dish caters to a group with special dietary needs (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, etc. )
Let’s say the unit cost for fried chicken is $10, and you plan to charge $16 for it. Subtract $10 from $16 to get $6. Divide your gross margin amount ($6) by your unit cost ($10) to get your markup percentage (60%).
Appetizers and desserts will have low unit costs, and high markup percentages. Steak and other expensive meats will only have about a 50% markup percentage. Pasta dishes and salads can have 80-85% markup percentages. Alcohol prices will vary widely. Try to keep your markup percentages between 50 and 70%.
For instance, do you think your customers can afford to buy a $30 entree, or would they stick to a $15-20 range?
If you have access to Microsoft word, Powerpoint, or any Adobe Suite programs, there are many menu templates in these formats available online. Websites like Canva and Must Have Menus offer some free templates, and others for a fee. Programs like iMenu offer drag-and-drop menu templates, but programs like this are not usually free.
A family diner might use a menu placemat. A brunch spot might use little wooden clipboards to present menus. An upscale bistro might have folding menus encased in clear binders.
Keep your fonts simple. Don’t use more than 3 fonts on the menu. Check to see if any of the pages seems lopsided. Try to provide the same amount of information on each page. You can find menu templates on Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or online.
Post an add on Freelancer. com, Linkedin, Craigslist, or another site. Include as many specifics about the project as you can. Depending on the specifics of your design a professional designer should cost anywhere from $300 to $500.
If you want to hire a food photographer instead, post an add on Freelancer. com or Craigslist, and expect to pay between $10 and $50 per image. [14] X Research source
“Is the menu easy to read?” “Do you like the color scheme?” “Does the design fit with the restaurant concept?” “Does the design seem too busy?” “Do you like the font(s)?” “Are there any mistakes or typos?”
If you will be using disposable menus (e. g. , placemats) determine the number of customers you plan to have each day and multiply that by the length of time you want this round of menus to last. You will reorder menus as needed.
You can send your menu to a chain, like Staples, or a local printing service. Or you can order prints of your menu online. Print a few menus and make sure they are perfect before you place a large order.
