Menu engineering involves strategically designing a restaurant menu to maximize profits through menu psychology techniques. Some key strategies include highlighting popular and profitable items in the "golden triangle" areas at the top of the menu where customers' eyes first look. Descriptions can appeal to customers' imagination and nostalgia. Including photos increases sales. Prices ending in .95 rather than whole dollars and limiting choices can also influence customer purchases. Ongoing testing and revision is important to continuously improve the menu's performance.

1. MENU ENGINEERING
The Psychology Of
Menu Design – Why
It Is So Important

2. Menu engineering is the practice of analyzing and
strategically designing your menu to maximize
restaurant profits. By highlighting your restaurant’s
most popular and profitable items with menu
psychology techniques, menu engineering constructs
your menu in the most effective way.
WHAT IS MENU
ENGINEERING?

3. We have reached a point where customers have
become more conscious of what they consume.
According to David Henkes, Technomic’s senior
principal, 69% of consumers worldwide cited the
availability of healthy options being a very important
factor in choosing where to buy a meal.
Along with the healthy food trend, are concepts of
locally sourced and organic, which bring higher price
points and lower shelf life. Buying healthy, locally
sourced, organic ingredients will most definitely cause
your food cost to be higher, in turn making the menu
price higher. This why knowing your target market is
so crucial to menu engineering.
CUSTOMER
RESEARCH AND
MENU
ENGINEERING

4. Research about the area/neighborhood the restaurant
is located in will give you a better idea of the average
household income, spending patterns, and
competition, and if locally sourced/organic is
something to consider.
These will be key decisions as you go through the
menu engineering process. The average household
income of the surrounding area is usually
representative of how much they are willing to spend.
When selecting a restaurant, 44% of consumers name
the overall price as a top priority.
CUSTOMER
RESEARCH AND
MENU
ENGINEERING

5. THE GOLDEN
TRIANGLE
Place the items you want to sell in the center, the top
right corner, and the top left corner.

6. THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE
Take a look at your restaurant menu and take note of
where your eyes move first.For most people, their eyes
look at the middle, then they travel to the top right
corner and finally to the top left corner.Restaurant
menu engineers call this the Golden Triangle.What to
put here? This is where your dishes with the highest
profit margins land. This doesn’t necessarily mean your
most expensive menu items, just the most profitable.

7. THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE
You can consider these areas your high rent areas. If
you put these items in these areas, and they don’t meet
your profitability goals, consider trying other dishes in
these spots.
Lastly, in each Golden Triangle area, you can include
more than one dish. Just know that the first and
second items listed are usually the top selling items,
and list the rest in descending order.

8. Another way to use psychology to your advantage in
your menu design is with color.
COLOR IS
DEFINITIVE

9. HERE ARE
SOME BASIC
TIPS WHEN
USING COLOR:
When your customers see the
color green, it makes them think
of fresh food, just picked from
the garden.
When customers see orange, it
stimulates their appetite. Orange
is a fun, light color with delicious
qualities. Plus, the color
stimulates the brain by increasing
its oxygen supply. Orange is also
associated with healthy food.

10. HERE ARE
SOME BASIC
TIPS WHEN
USING COLOR:
Yellow makes people happy, and
you can use it on your menu to
grab the reader’s attention.
Yellow can also stimulate a
diner’s appetite.
If you use red on your menu, it’s
an attention-grabber. It makes
people stand up and take notice.
You can use red to guide people
to the dishes you really want
them to order.

11. When it comes to pricing your menu, how you do it
matters.
THE USE OF
DOLLAR SIGNS

12. THE USE OF
DOLLAR SIGNS
One source says that removing dollar signs from a
menu makes people spend more money.Why is this?
When you remove the dollar signs, you take away the
“real” or perceived value of the meal. It just doesn’t feel
like you’re spending money when the dollar signs
disappear.The same source goes on to say that
spelling out the price – ten dollars instead of 10 –
makes diners spend more.

13. Avoid the below tactics:
Currency indicators
remind customers that
they’re spending money
and can even make
them feel like they are
spending more than
they are. Soften the
price by eliminating the
dollar sign.
AVOID DOLLAR
SIGNS
Price trails are dotted
lines that connect your
menu items to their
price, which is often
listed on the other side
of the page. This takes
the focus away from
your dish description
and straight to the price
instead.
AVOID PRICE
TRAILS
By placing your prices
in a column next to
your dishes, guests can
easily compare prices
and may make their
decision based on the
cheapest dish.
AVOID PRICE
COLUMNS
This can sound cheap
and unsatisfying to
many customers.
AVOID ENDING
YOUR PRICES
WITH 99

14. Other ways to get your customers to
spend more on your menu include:
Throw some very
expensive dishes on
your menu, even if you
don’t ever serve them.
This makes the other
menu items look like a
deal.
End your prices with
.95. For example, make
your burger 10.95
instead of 11. This just
seems less expensive
even though it really
isn’t.
END PRICE
WITH 95
PUT A FEW
EXPENSIVE
ITEMS

15. Use the description of your menu items to play into
the psychology of the purchase.
APPEAL TO THE
IMAGINATION

16. APPEAL TO THE IMAGINATION
Use creative descriptions like freshly-picked, recently
harvested, line-caught, home-brewed and chef
designed to entice your diners.You want them to
imagine the process of someone bringing the food to
the table.Stay away from superlatives as you can bet
diners will ignore them because they are too fantastic
to believe.

17. APPEAL TO THE IMAGINATION
Another trick is to use nostalgia in your description. It’s
a powerful driver when it comes to diners.For example,
try Aunt Mabel’s Renowned Fried Chicken instead of
simply friend chicken.This makes diners feel like
they’re ordering something really special – a blast from
the past that is worth the money.

18. Put your most cost-effective dishes in prime spots.
LIST
MANAGEMENT
MATTER

19. LIST MANAGEMENT
MATTER
If you have 10 items to list under a category, for
example, pasta dishes, pay attention to the order of the
list.Manage your list so that the top items you want to
sell are in the top spots. Most customers
subconsciously order from either the top two or the
bottom option in a list of menu items.Put your most
cost-effective dishes in these prime spots.

20. People may be willing to pay more because they
perceive the value to be better.
DECOYS ARE
SMART

21. DECOYS ARE
SMART
You can manipulate customers into ordering more if it
seems like they’re saving money by not purchasing the
more expensive menu item. It gives the impression of a
bargain.People then end up spending more than the
highest dollar item.Where does this smart decoy go?
Put it near the top so everything else seems better
priced.What’s more, when you showcase slightly more
expensive items, it makes your entire menu look better
and suggest your food is of exceptionally high quality.

22. DECOYS ARE
SMART
Let’s look at the Science Daily study. They found that
people set their expectations based on the price of the
menu item.They offered two groups of people an all-
you-can-eat Italian buffet. Some were charged $4, while
others were charged $8.They then asked diners to rate
the food. Even though it was exactly the same, the
people who paid $8 rated their food higher.The lesson
here – think twice before you lowball your items.
People may be willing to pay more because they
perceive the value to be better.

23. On a similar note to "decoy"
“BRACKETING"

24. “BRACKETING"
Include two portion options for one dish without
including the exact size. The “larger” size will have a
steeper price, such as $31, while the “smaller” size will
have a seemingly cheaper price, like $22. The customer
won’t know exactly how much smaller the small portion
is, yet it will still seem to be the best-value price, since
it simply costs less. In reality, the “smaller” portion can
be the one you wanted to sell the whole time, and this
tactic makes the meal item more attractive because
guests will feel they are choosing a dish with good
value.

25. ATTENTION-
GRABBING
TECHNIQUE
Including a nice-looking picture alongside a food item
increases sales by 30 percent

26. ATTENTION-GRABBING TECHNIQUE
In one Iowa State University study, researchers tested a
digital display of a salad on kids at a YMCA camp.
Campers who saw the salad photo were up to 70
percent more likely to order a salad for lunch. “You
respond to the image on the display like you would
respond to a plate in front of you,” said Brian
Mennecke, an associate professor of information
systems. “If you’re hungry you respond by saying, ‘I’ll
have what’s in that picture.’” This effect is even more
powerful when it comes to digital signs that move or
rotate, which fast food restaurants are beginning to
implement. “The more vivid the image, in terms of
movement, color and accuracy of representation, the
more realistic, the more it’s going to stimulate your
response to it,” Mennecke said.

27. ATTENTION-GRABBING TECHNIQUE
Studies show that customers are likely to order one of
the first items that draws their attention. Since guests
only spend an average of 109 seconds looking at your
menu, it must be designed for guests to easily find key
items.
Include a photo, graphic, colored or shaded box, border,
or surround the item(s) with white space. Only highlight
one or two items per section.

28. The “paradox of choice”LIMIT CHOICES

29. LIMIT CHOICES
The “paradox of choice” states that the more options
we have, the more anxiety we feel. Psychologists
suggest that restaurateurs limit options per category to
around 7 items.

30. Include a separate dessert menuDESSERT MENU

31. DESSERT MENU
If guests see an eye-catching dessert, they are more
likely to skip an appetizer. By surprising guests with
your dessert menu after dinner, you are more likely to
obtain appetizer and dessert sales.

32. Track weekly revenue and cross reference with your
weekly food costs
TEST NEW MENU
DESIGN

33. TEST NEW MENU
DESIGN
After your menu goes live it's important to track weekly
revenue and cross reference with your weekly food
costs. The process doesn't stop there. After you
assess the success of your newly engineered menu, it's
time to go through the process again and see where
you can make even more gains.