17.1 Introduction
The menu is at the heart of your restaurant. It is arguably the most fun part of planning a restaurant opening because it is all about getting creative with food. However, planning a menu is not about listing a few dishes on a piece of paper, adding a price and presenting it to the customers. There is a lot of research, planning and calculating that goes into planning even a simple menu.
In this module, you will learn the ins and outs of planning and pricing a menu. From researching what your customers want to figuring out how you will deliver it to them, you can use this module as a process for creating a menu for any type of restaurant.
17.2 Researching Your Menu
Before you even begin planning your menu, you need to do a lot of research. This research should be comprehensive but should focus on two of the most important areas of your
Target Market
As a business, you will have a target market. Whether you are setting up a takeaway, a family restaurant or an upscale dining space, you need to first establish your target market. Your target market will include the age, type and location of your customers.
The reason that you need to establish your target market is because you then need to cater to their needs. You need to be able to offer them a menu they will love at a price that they will pay for.
However, you still need to offer something that sets you apart from your competition. This 'something' is what will attract your target market to you and keep them coming back.
If you are entering an existing market, you need to get to grips with what the current market is doing. You should be aware of the kinds of foods that are offered elsewhere and the kind of service that is offered.
Some of this existing market will depend on your location. While it is possible to plan the same kind of restaurant concept in Blackpool as you might in London, it is important to remember that you will be playing to a much smaller market with less disposable income. Looking at national trends is important, but playing on current local trends is also important if you are looking to draw in the local market as your primary customer base.
For example, if you want to try out new, exciting dishes in a small market, you should also make sure you offer classic or traditional foods as well. This does not make your restaurant any less innovative. It just means that you will have more to offer your target market.
Food Costs
Food costs change regularly and being up to date with price increases, decreases and the general availability of food stuffs is a must before you begin to plan a menu.
This is especially true for your mainstay dishes, the dishes you intend to offer year round. You should ensure that you know how much it costs to make that dish and also be aware of any waste. Keeping food seasonal will help keep your food prices down.
FACT
The Top 3 Menu Trends Are:
1. Locally sourced meats and seafood
2. Locally grown produce
3. Healthy children's meals
Source: chefalsblog.com
17.3 Planning Your Menu
Once you have a good understanding of what your target market wants and how much it will cost to make it, you can begin to draft your menu.
Every restaurant will create a different menu based on the kind of food you want to create and the kind of market you want to serve. When you are planning a menu, you will want to keep several things in mind:
Style
Your menu should have some form of style. If you are an Italian restaurant, you would offer Italian food. If you want to serve tapas, you should serve tapas, not other foods. If you focus on locally grown, sustainable food, you avoid imported foods.
You should avoid mixing up your menu between themes because it will confuse customers. However, you also want to have a set style because you want the dishes your restaurant prepares to be prepared to the best of the ability of the staff. It is much simpler to choose a few dishes and execute them well than to spread staff thin by trying to execute too many dishes at once.
Executing dozens of different types of dishes is best done as a part of a franchise. This is because franchises have tried and tested methods for cooking these dishes. They also have the relationships and the budget to get cheap food and hire plenty of labour.
Avoiding long menus is good practice unless you have a large staff, lots of food experience and deep pockets. The style can be a difficult part of menu planning but remember that your menu is not set in stone. You can change things that do not work by asking your first customers about their preferences. It is very rare for a restaurant to be using the same menu that it created for its opening six months later.
Seasonality
When you are creating menu staples, you should think about how seasonal the dish is. Although it does not feel like there are many seasons in Britain, there are still seasonal foods. People associate different foods with different times of the year and it is best to recognise this when you are planning menus. For example, cold soups are associated with summer and game stews are associated with winter.
Also, you will need to consider the seasonality of your ingredients. The cost of your ingredients will
go up when you try to purchase them out of season. Be mindful of these seasonal staples when you are planning your menu.
Special Occasions
When you are considering how the changing seasons will be reflected in your menu, be sure to include special occasions. Holidays, such as Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter and Mothering Sunday are a good opportunity to offer a set menu of customer favourites or a new special menu created for the day.
If you plan to accommodate large groups of guests, you will also want to provide an occasion menu for these bookings. This menu does not need to include new food. However, it should include a few items that the staff can do well, even when cooking in bulk.
Nutrition
Nutrition planning is an important part of the menu. Today's customers are often concerned about their nutrition, and they will bring up issues with your service staff. To prepare for this, offer a few meals that are nutritionally balanced if you are not creating the whole menu in this way. This provides more opportunities for health-conscious diners.
You should also make sure that essential staff are aware of the ingredients in the cooking. Service staff should also be informed of a point of contact to where they direct these inquiries to.
Dietary Requirements
Along with nutrition comes dietary requirements. You should include dishes on your menu that are suitable for vegetarians or possibly even for vegans. You may also consider creating dishes that are free of certain allergens, or that can be prepared to be free of certain allergens. Offering dairy-free foods or gluten-free alternatives is a good way to do this.
Consider all of the ingredients when listing a food as being suitable for someone with dietary requirements.
For example, tofu that has been fried in butter is not vegan. Although it might be a small detail to some, it will be important to the customer.
17.4 Engineering Your Menu
Coming up with possible dishes for your menu is only the first step of creating a menu. Once you have a better idea of what you want to serve, you need to make sure that it is feasible to do so. To make sure that your menu is realistic, you will need to think about how you will create it in the kitchen.
Staff Costs
Your staff costs can be a key cost of the restaurant business. However, having good staff is essential for your success. You need a cook who can cook, kitchen staff who can work efficiently and wait staf who can bring the whole restaurant to life.
You will need to consider the kitchen staff that your potential menu requires. Some menus require only a couple of people behind the scenes. However, the more complicated your menu is, the more help you will need in the kitchen.
Kitchen Space
You need to consider how much space you have in your kitchen before you commit to a menu. This requires you to consider two things: how many members of staff you need and how much preparation space you need.
It is essential that you have enough space in the kitchen for every member of staff to work safely and efficiently. Too many cooks in a small kitchen will increase the number of accidents and the number of mistakes that are made. Both of these increase the potential liability for your business which eventually increases your costs.
Supplies and Equipment
The food you prepare may be cooked by hand but you need to think about whether or not you will need specialist supplies to bring your menu to life. There will be a basic amount of kitchen equipment that you need to run a kitchen. However, certain cooking techniques, processes and ingredients will require different tools. Some of these tools may be expensive and others may be fragile and need to be purchased regularly. You need to make sure that these tools are worth the cost.
17.5 Pricing Your Menu
The goal of your restaurant is probably not to avoid profit. Working profit into your menu planning can be a difficult thing to do but it is an important strategy to take. Your goal should be to find a fair price for the food you prepare and offer it at a price to the customer that allows you to cover your businesses costs and still make a profit.
There are three things you need to consider when you are drawing up your prices:
1. Market Price Point
You need to consider how much your customers are willing to pay, not just for your food but for the experience of coming to your restaurant. This will depend on the kind of food you prepare, the kind of service you provide and the kind of atmosphere you want to offer.
For example, if you are managing a casual Italian restaurant that sells classic Italian dishes made from traditional recipes, you might choose to price yourself between budget (under £10 per main course) or mid-range (between £10 - £20 per main course). These two markets represent what a regular customer would be willing to pay for your food.
If you are offering a relaxed but still classic atmosphere in a prime location with an extensive menu, you would be more likely to choose mid-range because this is what would most likely cover your bills, and it is what your customers would expect to see at a competitor's restaurant.
2. Menu Item Cost
You need to ensure that you are including the cost of the food in the price. This is the cost that the market price point should cover at a minimum. You should have an exact, and evolving, cost per pound for the ingredients that make up every item on the menu.
Be sure to keep up with rising food costs. You should keep records of these costs every time you order from your suppliers.
You should not just be considering the cost of beef, rice or pasta or other major staples. It also means including items that chefs use with every meal. This includes oil, butter, salt and spices.
3. Needed Gross Profit
When you are setting out your official menu price, you need to consider your overall costs. The menu prices should reflect the costs of serving every customer that walks into your building. This does not just include basic food items but service costs, business costs; anything that you spend to keep your restaurant operational.
You also need to include in this figure the profit you need to make. Your food costs may eat up as much as 35% of your budget. Your labour costs could increase that number significantly depending on how much you pay your staff. What remains is often eaten up by general costs.
To calculate the general gross profit that you need, you can use the following equation: Total Annual Expenses - Product Costs + Ideal Profit = Total Gross Profit You can then add that number to the menu item cost. Together, the total gross profit and the menu item costs should fall within the market demand range.
17.6 Drawing It All Together
Now that you have done all this research, you can draw everything together on a mock-up menu. This is a good time to begin testing your research. You can have cooks run through the menu and observe how they work. You can also observe the real costs of implementing your menu rather than just the perceived costs that you calculated before.
If everything runs smoothly, you can begin to try the menu out on customers. However, if you hit a few snags, you should not be afraid to iterate this process. Iteration is the key in business. Since your menu is at the heart of your restaurant, you should make sure that everything works before you begin selling it to customers.
Module Summary
Putting together a menu is not something that is done in any afternoon. It takes time and careful research to make sure that it is done well.
Remember that a well prepared menu is what attracts customers to your business. However, a well- structured and well-balanced menu is what helps your business profit and grow!
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