Creating the Perfect Menu First impressions are everything

First Impressions Are EVERYTHING

Five Tips for Creating the Perfect Menu

by MEGAN PREVOST

Everyone’s heard the old adage: First impressions are everything. It’s true in many ways, like for meeting new people, but even more so for someone choosing to patronize a restaurant for the first time. Whether guests show up due to word of mouth, advertising or local press, a first visit is just as much a sales pitch as it is the first experience. But within that first experience is another first impression: the first look at a menu.

Menus are extensions of the restaurants they represent. Diners will often seek to view the menu before ever setting foot in a restaurant. As such, the task of designing your menu is critical to your success. If you’re looking to create the perfect menu, keep these tips in mind, and you’ll be a master menu maker in no time.

1. Describe with Intention

When designing the layout of your menu, it’s important to match dish descriptions to the tone of your restaurant’s concept. Suppose your restaurant’s design intends to cultivate a hip, stylish atmosphere. In that case, you may want to lean more toward minimalism in design, listing key ingredients in dishes rather than going into great detail. On the other hand, if you’re cultivating a warm, homey environment, putting a little more love into the description will serve you better.

2. Eat with Your Eyes

Though it may be obvious to some, it bears repeating: Your menu needs to look professional. Having something slapdash or thrown together in a word-processing program only cheapens your restaurant experience and might deter potential diners altogether. Make sure that your menu is pleasant to look at. If you’re not much for graphic design yourself, there’s no need to worry. While hiring a design consultant can be expensive, there are plenty of beautiful menu templates online to choose from. Find one that fits your business and put something together! Having a clean-cut menu design will be one less piece of the puzzle to worry about, and your guests will eat it up.

3. Keep Your Brand in Mind

You’ve likely curated an aesthetic in your space when designing and opening a restaurant. As discussed above, you’ve had the chance to think about keeping menu design tonally consistent with the rest of the experience. But if you haven’t already,