Redesigning Menus for Better Margins

Reducing menus down to a few basics

A wide variety of dishes means a wide range of ingredients. But with far fewer customers, these options are unlikely to be ordered, meaning a lot more food waste. More options also make the kitchen more complex, increasing the cost again. So smart owners are limiting their menus to just a few dishes. Whether it’s five, three, or even one option, this minimizes produce costs to only absolutely necessary ingredients, allows for a more basic kitchen setup, and keeps waste to a minimum. “Due to the situation, it is now all the more important to consolidate your menu and to offer efficient meals. We do this with our Kaarage Curry Bowl, as it contains seasonal and qualitative vegetables we use in many other dishes. The focus on high-yielding dishes makes it easier to calculate in our restaurant” (Duc Nguyen, chef of 6 trendy restaurants in Germany). They are also choosing these dishes carefully. In general, they pick items that are:

• High margin: a simple calculation of price vs ingredient cost can go a long way.
• Customer favorites: what do you sell the most? If customers see their go-to dishes on the menu, it won’t matter if there aren’t other options.
• Prepared in similar ways: the fewer different parts of the kitchen involved in running your new menu, the easier to run a more basic setup.