Your front-of-house is designed for flow, the line is prepped, and your chef has created the perfect menu for your restaurant’s concept. Make sure that perfect line-up of dishes is presented in a way that is visually pleasing, easy to navigate, and boosts your restaurant’s sales.
Good menu design is more than choosing pretty fonts and laying things out neatly. It’s about psychology, storytelling, and sales strategy. And when done right, it can drive higher ticket averages, move high-margin items, and enhance the guest experience. Here’s how to design a restaurant menu that boosts sales.
Start With Your Restaurant Goals
Before you touch layout or design, ask yourself some questions. These will help guide your menu’s direction:
- What do you want to sell more of? Are you focused on upselling high-cost sides? Trying to move more appetizers? Want more guests to order off your specialty drinks offerings?
- Are there high-margin items you should highlight?
- Are you offering too many options?
Design follows function. If you want to push your house-made pasta because it’s a crowd-pleaser with great margins, that should drive how it’s placed and presented. If your appetizers are often overlooked, you might consider restructuring your categories or adding visual emphasis there.
For example, let’s say you run a taco joint. You know your birria tacos cost more to make but don’t offer the best return. But your veggie tacos are delicious, popular, and profitable. Your menu should reflect that through placement, description, and maybe even a little design flair.
Use Menu Engineering to Categorize Smartly
Menu engineering is a trick from the big restaurant chains that you can steal. It involves breaking down your menu into four categories:
- Stars: High profit, high popularity
- Puzzles: High profit, low popularity
- Plowhorses: Low profit, high popularity
- Dogs: Low profit, low popularity
Your stars deserve the spotlight. Puzzles may just need better placement or a stronger description. Consider removing the dogs or replacing them, unless they serve a purpose, like appeasing picky kids.
If your shrimp scampi sells once in a blue moon, takes forever to prep, and barely turns a profit, why is it still on the menu? Time to trim the fat.
Create Visual Hierarchy
Most diners don’t read menus top to bottom, they usually scan. Your job is to guide their eyes toward what you want them to see. Here’s how to do it:
- Use boxes, borders, or shading to highlight high-margin sections like house specials or combo plates.
- Limit each category to 5–7 items. Too many choices will lead to decision fatigue.
- Place high-profit items near the top or in the center of each section.
- Use white space generously. Crowded menus feel overwhelming.
For example, at a brunch spot, the most profitable item might be a build-your-own mimosa flight. Rather than burying it under “Drinks,” make a special call-out with a fun name and border.
Write Great Menu Descriptions
Don’t use fancy, flowery language in your menu. Restaurant menu descriptions should spark an appetite and clearly communicate ingredients and preparation methods. Compare these two versions:
Boring: Grilled chicken sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and aioli.
Better: Flame-grilled chicken breast with crisp romaine, heirloom tomato, and garlic aioli on a toasted brioche bun.
The second version is still short and to the point, but a lot more delicious-sounding.
Using sensory words like “crispy,” “slow-roasted,” “buttery,” or “hand-tossed” add texture and taste to your words without going overboard.
Remove the Dollar Signs
Studies have shown that dollar signs can make people more price-conscious. You’re not trying to trick anyone, but you do want to keep the focus on flavor and value, not price.
Just list the price as “14” instead of “$14.” Keep prices tucked to the right. This prevents guests from scanning straight down and choosing the cheapest item.
Limit Your Menu Size
A big menu might seem like a good idea, but more options don’t equal better sales. In fact, they can hurt them. Streamlining your offerings also helps you improve kitchen efficiency, reduce food waste, focus your messaging, and make it easier for guests to choose.
The ideal menu size is one or two pages max. A single-panel menu can make decision-making quick and confident.
Highlight House Specials or Signature Dishes
Every restaurant should have a go-to item people rave about or post on social media. Your menu should elevate it. You can do this by adding a star or icon next to it, including a “Chef’s Pick” badge, using bold or italic text sparingly, or giving it a fun name that tells a story.
For example, instead of “Spaghetti and Meatballs,” try: Nonna Rosa’s Sunday Sauce, with hand-rolled meatballs and slow-simmered red sauce served over imported spaghetti, just like our chef’s grandma made it.
Keep Your Design On-Brand
Your menu is a brand touchpoint. Whether it’s printed or digital, it should match your restaurant’s vibe, for example: rustic and homey, sleek and modern, casual and playful.
And always use legible fonts, make sure there’s enough contrast between background and text, and don’t cram in too much information.
Test, Track, and Tweak
You should always track how your restaurant menu is performing. Take note of what sells, what doesn’t, what guests ask about. Then adjust accordingly. Some ways to test include:
- Asking servers what guests frequently order or ignore
- Running a limited-time item and track performance
- Using POS data to identify your stars and dogs
- Update seasonally to reflect ingredients and trends
While you don’t need a graphic designer or copywriter to design a smart menu, it sure helps. We help restaurants design digital and print menus that reflect your brand, guide guest decisions, and boost sales. Let’s talk.
