A program for creating a restaurant menu in Russian. Creating a restaurant menu

Restaurant owners often underestimate the importance of menu design. We are sure that you are probably familiar with the fact that many restaurants offer visitors simply completely unattractive menus. If you own a restaurant, then you should definitely take care of the menu design, as it is very important. Your top priorities are to provide excellent service and quality food.

Today we don’t want to cite someone as an example and shout that in the modern world every person must be interested in design and understand it. After all, this is not so. Many people today use not very beautiful objects, clothes, shoes, they don’t really care what the restaurant menu, furniture, cars, etc. look like. Many people throughout their lives do not want to devote even a minute to design, functionality or aesthetics. This is both good and terrifying at the same time, but you should not forget that there are other people who care deeply about these things.

Imagine that you entered a restaurant where absolutely everything creates a pleasant impression: the interior, the service, the music, the food, the menu design. Many people try to pay attention to all sorts of little things, and really be proud of the care and attention with which this or that thing was created.

On the other hand, we often come across establishments where we want to quickly eat and leave.

If a restaurant makes money, even if it’s small, why not hire a professional designer who would responsibly design business cards, flyers, menus, and more? If you, as a restaurant owner, care about the image of your establishment and business as a whole, then you should definitely pay attention to this. If you have no desire to invest in your own business, this shows what kind of businessman you are.

Please don't think that the menu is the only thing you should pay attention to. We think that every restaurant should be decorated somehow uniquely, with some idea, in order to withstand competition, to attract the attention of visitors and journalists, to provide quality service, to use all kinds of effective marketing techniques to attract visitors, to provide visitors with excellent decoration and the interior of the establishment.

Let's finally talk about the menu:

* Do you have an executive class restaurant or is it more related to the entertainment sector? Can a visitor understand this from your menu?
* Is your menu functional?
* Is your logo on the menu?
*Isn't the font small? Is it easy to read?
* Is the menu layout simple and neat? Or is it misleading?
*Is your menu durable?
*Are you going to change the menu every couple of months?

You should answer these questions. A menu is a great way to create an impression on visitors about your establishment. You'll be surprised how powerful a menu can be. If you do not have design skills, we recommend that you hire a talented designer to help you solve this problem.

Today we want to present you with 35 examples of beautiful menu designs. We have hand-selected only the best examples of implementation that will help you get inspired for a small rebranding.

The menu is the basis of the restaurant business. This is not just a list of dishes that are served in the establishment, but a way to offer the visitor what interests him most, to capture his attention. A common mistake novice restaurateurs make is to tackle menu layout as an afterthought. When the interior, sign and logo are ready, it can be difficult to match the menu to the already created atmosphere of the establishment

It’s logical to start with the menu, and you need to do this before you create the environment for your restaurant or cafe. The image of the establishment is expressed in the choice of cuisine and key dishes, and then it’s time for the interior and style. Even the staff uniform depends on the menu! Imagine waiters in kimonos with a menu from which you can only choose pizza and craft beer.

A good menu should also be convenient for your waiters so that they can quickly find the right item and forward the order to the kitchen. This is implemented in a very accessible way in the Poster POS accounting system. , create a menu and see how it will look on your tablet.

Don’t neglect the simplest advice: look at how your competitors’ menus are designed. Does it fit with the overall concept of the establishment and what do visitors order more often? Don't be afraid to borrow successful models and add them to your menu. But, of course, it’s not worth blatantly copying. It is possible to correctly create a menu for a cafe or restaurant only after analyzing the market.

Menu development for a cafe, stages

Creating a menu for a cafe or restaurant can be divided into several stages. First, a concept is formed: groups of drinks and dishes, positions for each group and price categories. Then a test tasting, after which the key dishes on the menu are selected. The final stage is the creation of technological maps and the choice of optimal serving of the dish to the visitor. We advise you to invite an experienced chef to draw up technical maps, which your cooks will subsequently use.

What should you consider when developing a menu?

Target audience;

choice of cuisine;

establishment format;

the level of trade margins and the optimal cost of each dish;

culinary trends.

Long or short menu

Remember, a long menu increases the time it takes to serve visitors. Instead of deciding on an order in a few minutes, they will study the menu for a long time and meticulously. This is especially true for clients who come to you for the first time. They also can't decide what they should try and consult the waiter. The speed of service to other tables is significantly reduced, which means you lose money.

Some restaurateurs argue in favor of a long menu by the fact that the client, having tried everything, will stop coming to your establishment. This is a misconception. Remember: your regular customers come back to eat their favorite dish again and recommend it to their friends.

Don't confuse a menu with a brochure of weekly or monthly specials, which are often used as a serving mat or as a pyramid on the table. This is a great way to highlight your margins and seasonal dishes, which we'll talk about a little below.

How to create a selling menu

Let's assume that your establishment has already started working with a well-developed menu. But you notice that some dishes sell very poorly, although they have a minimal markup. It is important not only to work out the menu, but also to make it selling. It all starts with analyzing the existing assortment and identifying the most marginal and popular items. Perhaps we will reveal the secret of the restaurant business to someone, but almost all establishment owners have been using the simplest and most optimal method for more than 30 years.

The classic method of menu engineering was developed back in the early 1980s by scientists from the University of Michigan - Donald Smith and Michael Casanava from the USA. They took a popular market analysis model and adapted it to the restaurant business to understand how different menu items performed. Then we divided all the dishes from the menu according to two criteria: the share of sales in the category (compared to the average) and the margin per item (compared to the average). There were only 4 groups of dishes:

"Stars" - high margins and good sales. The basis of a profitable menu.

"Workhorses" - good sales, but not too much margin. You shouldn’t remove them from the menu, but you should strive to reduce their cost or increase their price.

"Riddles" - high margins, but weak sales. It is necessary to stimulate demand for such positions.

“Dogs” - low margins and poor sales. Garbage that needs to be removed from the menu. Such dishes only distract visitors.

Food analysis

Let's analyze one menu category. For example, consider the category “beer snacks” in a cafe or pub. Our goal is to determine which group the dish belongs to. We took sales data for one day in the proposed cafe, but it is better to conduct a similar analysis over a weekly or monthly period to avoid errors.

	Sales volume, pcs.	Share of sales, %	Cost, %		Gross cost	Sales volume	Gross Margin
Basturma
Onion rings
Cheese balls
Crackers
		Average share of sales - 25		Average margin - 218.9

Fill out the table:

The number of all dishes sold per day: 15 + 70 + 30 + 85 = 200. We add up the known data and enter the total sales volume, total gross cost and gross margin. If you want to calculate foodcost, then divide the gross cost by the total sales in the category and multiply by 100%: 14,620.5 / 58,400 * 100 = 25%.

To find out average profit margin of dishes, divide the gross margin by the total number of items sold: 43779.5 / 200 = 218.9. By comparing the data for each position with this figure, you will understand which dishes you have are high-margin and which are not.

To find out share of sales of each dish, divide the number of servings sold by the total number of dishes sold and multiply by 100. If you want to find out average share of dish sales in this category, then divide 100% by the number of positions in the “beer snacks” category: 100 / 4 = 25%. By comparing each item's share of sales to the average share of sales, you can determine the most and least popular items.

Onion rings are the star, high margin and very popular.

Basturma is a “dog”, low margins and demand. Feel free to remove the snack from the menu and replace it with a profitable item that your visitors will like.

Crackers are a typical workhorse, high popularity but low margins. The cheapest item in the category. Perhaps the price of the dish should be increased.

Cheese balls are a “mystery”, good margins, but poor sales. We need to make the position more popular. Launch a promotion or special offer with this item, highlight it on the menu and instruct the waiters to offer it more often.

How to highlight marginal positions in the menu

Draw attention to marginal items on the menu. Place them in a separate block, write them in large font or highlight them in contrast against the background of other positions.

Place the highest-margin dishes first or last in your category. But they should not be the cheapest or the most expensive - this negatively affects sales.

Highlight marginal dishes with a photograph. If you add a photo to each item, then highlighting the desired dish will be problematic. But if you show only a few items from a category, they will definitely catch the guest’s eye.

Add dishes with above-average margins to special offers. Place an artificial restriction on them. For example, a seasonal offer, a limited dish from the chef, only on certain days, etc.

Focus your guests' attention on rare and expensive ingredients in your dishes. Everyone wants to try something unusual, something that cannot be bought in a store. Such components are a good justification for the high price.

Visually separate prices from menu items so that guests can easily compare them. Place prices in a separate column or separate them with a line. The main thing is not to write next to the name of the dish.

When planning your menu, you need to understand what kind of people will come to you. Based on this, you need to build a general pricing policy for the establishment. Do not rush to include dishes on the menu whose preparation standards you do not know. Consider supply disruptions, seasonality and price increases. can also cause your menu to not work as you intended, so be sure to eliminate them first.

You must always guarantee excellent quality of food and precise cooking time. Don't forget that all your efforts will be in vain if your staff can't sell your culinary masterpieces. Constantly test new layout models. The restaurant business does not stand still; every year new trends appear, which you can always read about on our blog.

“...You’d better starve than eat anything...”

Omar Khayyam

The best and most important marketing tool is creating a restaurant menu. It is better to create a good and working menu at the start-up stage. All repairs, decoration, interior and everything that makes up the perception of the restaurant serves to ensure that the guest sits in a comfortable chair and picks up a menu of dishes. Until this moment, there is nothing to pay him for, and often novice restaurateurs often repeat the same mistake: they pay too close attention to interior issues, and the menu is developed according to the “by the way” principle.

Remember: the task of the interior is to attract the Guest to the “first purchase”, and the menu and service create in the Guest the desire to return and make a “second purchase”.

To make a positive decision on the guest’s second purchase, you need a selling menu, one that will sell itself, complement the waiter’s words with visualization, provide complete information about the dish, focused on increasing the average bill, and should be compiled in such a way that it helps to use active sales methods and technologies .

After all, it is the menu that ultimately determines the type of target audience, what qualifications of employees you will need, the list of equipment and much more. All this together will determine the sales and profit of the enterprise. Competent creating a restaurant menu will not only attract visitors, but can also guarantee repeat visits to your restaurant guests.

You need a selling menu, one that will sell itself, complement the waiter’s words with visualization, provide complete information about the dish, focused on increasing the average bill, and should be compiled in such a way that it helps to use active sales methods and technologies.

Therefore, special attention is always paid to the menu.

Food-laboratoryResto- MENU provides a full range of services to create the ideal menu for almost any type of enterprise in the Hospitality Industry.

The process of developing and creating a restaurant menu includes 10 stages:

1. Analytics and development strategy
2. Menu engineering -menu-engineering
3. Development of a selling menu
4. Elaboration of dishes
5. ART-development of dishes
6. Stage of testing dishes by tasting
7. Development of menu text, algorithms and documentation
8. Training kitchen staff to work on new items in the approved menu
9. Design layout and menu design
10. Implementation of the menu in the restaurant

The cost of work includes:

Documentation on the development of the 2nd stage;
Documentation on the development of the 3rd stage;
Developed technical and technological cards of the TTK with a compiled summary recipe and a fixed cost (food-cost);
Documentation of production workflow: acts, preparation standards, timing, procurement algorithms, job descriptions, etc.;
Photobank and videodatabank (photos and videography);
Statistical data on working with tastings;
Developed documentation for the 7th stage;
Developed documentation for the 9th stage;
Carrying out the training process on our territory (in St. Petersburg) or on your territory;
Receiving ready-made menu copies;
Carrying out the launch of the technological process and its debugging;

During the execution of work, the Customer additionally pays:

Air transfer and car transfer (airport, hotel, place of work)
Accommodation 4* or 3*+ hotel;
Meals for the chef or technologist for the entire period of work;

Over the past year, we have developed menus for the following restaurants: Buffet, Rasputin, Teryoki, Pristan, Tryton Bich, Royal Bich, Tkemali and Maurice-pub, Vincent, KaZan, Wok&Kebab café, ZiZn, La Mama and others.

Cost and timing of work are directly dependent on the image of the project, its size and conclusions made on the basis of the customer’s technical specifications and additional research work.

Duration of work: from 21 days to 3 months after providing the necessary documentation and making an advance payment.

http://setmymenus.com - a large database of ready-made templates for designing cafe and restaurant menus. Use the online editor to change the content of the templates and download the print-ready pdf file to your computer. Menu design for restaurants and cafes.

http://setmymenus.com - a large database of ready-made templates for designing cafe and restaurant menus. Use online (

This article will talk about what menus there are in restaurants. It will help you get a correct idea of the menu development process, avoid possible mistakes and unnecessary costs, and get not what you get, but what you would like.

Menu- a key detail of any restaurant. After all, sales and the impression of a restaurant depend on how the menu looks. The menu is part of the image. The menu is responsible for arousing the client’s appetite and arousing his desire to order a dish. Now there are different trends in restaurant menu design. Let's divide them into two broad categories to begin with. Menus are text, without photographs and menus with photographs of dishes, all or selected ones. Both designs can look good and stylish. But only a menu design with photographs will whet the client’s appetite. Of course, with a menu with photos, you will have to tinker a little longer, but the result will not be long in coming if everything is done correctly.

If we decide to make a menu with photographs, then first of all, we need to find a photographer. First we need a photographer and a designer. Or a design studio with a full-time photographer. There are also companies specializing only in restaurant services. Everyone has their pros and cons. This topic will be discussed in the article "Designer or design studio? Who to work with?" Most often, photographers work on their own. Therefore, in this article we will look at working with a photographer and designer.

You can contact any universal photographer. But it’s best to immediately find a photographer whose portfolio includes photographing dishes for a restaurant. Such photographers are called food photographers. Why is a food photographer better? Food photography has its own characteristics, just like any genre. Here it is important to have the appropriate technology and equipment, it is important to know the organization of the process so as not to waste the customer’s unnecessary time, to have the appropriate props, to be able to retouch food photography, to be able to beautifully serve dishes for shooting.

The cost range for food photographer services is very wide. Many people make money from this only for the originality of the services. You can read how to choose a food photographer wisely in the article: “Food photographer services and cost of services”

When a food photographer has been found, we order him to photograph dishes for the restaurant. A good food photographer will not promise to photograph all the dishes in 3-5 hours. A good photograph of an average restaurant menu takes at least 2 days, 5-7 hours each. Next, you need to acquire the necessary products for shooting. In addition to the ingredients for your dishes, you may need accompanying products that will decorate the menu in the frame. To do this, it is better to consult with a photographer or designer in advance. The cook prepares the dishes, the food photographer photographs them, and the waiters have the opportunity to eat to their heart's content.

Advice: It’s a good idea to feed the photographer, too, because he’s on his feet all day trying for you. He has no time to go away to eat, because he doesn’t want to waste your time. He will be grateful to you, and this will have a good effect on his work.

Advice: Food styling and food photography for menus require a high degree of concentration. A food stylist is often responsible for a complex composition. But food photographers also work very hard. In addition to the aesthetic part, he must also have the technical part in order. After 3-4 hours of work, perception often becomes dull. The optimal amount of work without a break is no more than 4 hours. Then you should take a break. We need to “refresh” our outlook. It's like if you inhale a lot of aromas one by one, you soon stop distinguishing them. There is also an optimal number of working hours, which is 5-6 hours. If time allows, it is better to split the shooting into 2 days or 5 hours, rather than suffer for all 10 hours at once. In this case, the first and last photographs may be clearly inferior in quality to the first.

The shooting is over and you are waiting for the photo.

Advice: It is better to discuss how long to wait for a photo with the photographer in advance. For all photographers, this can take varying amounts of time, from a week to a month. It should be taken into account that the food photographer has his own real queue. This point can be clarified in advance. But planning ahead is unrealistic.

Sooner or later you get them :) They look good, but in magazines they are much more appetizing, brighter and juicier. What's the matter? It's a matter of final retouching. A food photographer does batch processing of his photographs, but he does not do the final retouching. For this you need either a retoucher or a designer. There are also nuances here: it’s one thing to remove garbage in the frame, but it’s quite another to remove product defects: tears and cracks, raw meat in a cutlet, etc. This retouching is an additional job for the retoucher.

Most design studios and designers work on an advance payment basis. On the one hand, you shouldn't be afraid of this. Menu design is a product that is weakly protected by copyright and requires insurance. On the other hand, of course, you need to be vigilant.

Probable error: Some firms may agree to work without advance payment. But surprisingly, they often simply disappear with your order! The answer is simple - they simply give preference to customers who have paid in advance. A professional designer is simply reluctant to take on an order without advance payment.

Turnkey menu design development for a restaurant and photo shoot: Menufoto team.
Photographer