Fundamentally, a good food service business needs to provide great quality food together with great service in order to be successful. Assuming that your service is covered, then there are always a few things that you can do to ensure that your food offer gets customers returning again and again.

It’s the details that matter…

8 ways to maximise your menus

1. Where possible, try and give customers the option to personalise their dish e.g. switching chips for sweet potato fries.

2. At the menu creation stage, it is worth considering if small changes of ingredients could make it possible for the dish to be gluten free, vegetarian or vegan when noting the allergen information.

3. By costing each of your dishes, you will know what profit you make on everything you sell, so are there any things you could do to take any of your dishes to the next level e.g. add a more premium ingredient?

4. Make sure menus are always clean and in good condition. People notice when they’re not.

5. When you can, provide additional choice with a specials menu even if you only offer a few extra dishes on there. Create seasonal specials or those that tie in with an event or occasion – such as strawberries and cream when Wimbledon is on.

6. Add drinks recommendations alongside dishes on your menus. An option could be to focus on a drinks category that you are strong on or well-known for e.g. wine, but don’t forget to include other categories and always include soft drinks alternatives. (This can help boost drinks sales). N.B. don’t forget that you will need to always have your drinks recommendations in stock for at least as long as you are using the menus!

7. Carefully look at the presentation of each dish. In today’s visual age, being photo-worthy is very important and customers like to post pictures to social media. This should be considered something that can work in your favour as it can be free advertising for you. Ensure your social media details are visible on printed materials and around your business so that they can be tagged in.

8. Consider when there are opportunities for you to give customers something unexpected for free e.g. offering sugar coated sweets (such as Smarties or Revels), a homemade cookie or shortbread with your hot drinks offering that will put a smile on customers’ faces at the end of their meal.

By thinking about some of the tips here – along with the upskilling of your team – you can help to make your food offer work in the best way possible for both you and your customers.

If you would like to discuss how we can help to build a menu for your business, give us a call on 0560 387 4926.