Grand designs

Restaurant - 09/04/08

Got a great dish that isn’t selling? Not shifting many desserts? If you’re facing a sales anomaly, it might be time to take a tip from the chains and look at the way your menu is designed.

The human eye takes in documents in a certain way, says Blathnaid Bergin, an Irish restaurant consultant. “Menu psychology is just placing items where they’re most visible, so that the eye is drawn to them.” She teaches catering students that people naturally register the first and last items they see on a menu, and that highlighted text will stand out, making these spots ideal for items with a good margin.
Jason Shaw is Director of Food and Beverage Operations for the Individual Restaurant Company, which operates Piccolino. He uses psychology to adjust menus when a dish isn’t performing. “Your eye is drawn to the top-right corner first of all,” he says Shaw has seen results by altering the Piccolino menu. “We look at price point, components and garnish before saying it’s located in the wrong menu place. But if we believed in a dish and we simply moved it up a position without changing the wording or price point, it would have a benefit.”

Grouping like with like is important he explains. “We looked at where we were putting our beef dishes, which were all at the end. We drew the rib eye of beef, which is a complete dish rather than a simple grill, further up in the menu and put it with other dishes which were similar. It moved sales up. Within that category, you could influence a five per cent swing by moving it around.”
Room co-owner John Pallagi learnt from his former career in publishing that “layout is paramount in terms of how people read”. He also believes that if customers see the whole menu before ordering anything, they’re more likely to take three courses. “Based on our sales mixes, 30 to 45 per cent of customers up sell to a dessert,” he says. “Is that because the dessert menu is on a different menu and they haven’t seen them? Were aiming to get dessert sales to increase 70 per cent, so on the next menu we’ve moved our desserts onto the a la carte menu and placed them underneath the starters. We felt that would entice people to leave room for something. We use our EPOS system to measure results quarter on quarter.” Research in the US also led Pallagi to use text boxes and highlight colours on the group’s Grille menus, which highlight Sunday lunch. “We felt that was a clever way of up selling future visits. It’s been a tremendous success,” he says.
Jacinta Phelan, General Manager at Harvey Nichols restaurants, believes “listing the desserts under the starter’s works at lunchtime, but it depends on the style of restaurant”. The OXO restaurant menu is a fold-out affair, with a separate dessert list that suits a more formal environment, but Phelan adds, “the drive to all-day dining is going exceptionally well and it’s something were considering in the OXO brasserie because it’s all about lifestyle. On an A3 format people can have the choice of something that’s lunch, light or heavy; and to see it all together. It can sell repeat visits and that’s the key to your core trade.”

She also identifies the top-right of a menu as its key spot, and says it makes a real difference. “It’s evident on the sales mixes. If we feel the dish is a really strong contender and it’s not selling well, rather than just eliminate it we’ll try it in one key spots and see if it moves,” explains Phelan. “What we take into consideration when we pick spots is the margin. The high GP dishes are obviously dishes for us to be selling a lot of, and that’s taken into consideration.” The advice is clear – before you give up on a platter that should matter, consider promoting it to a top spot.