Restaurant Menu Revamp: Bring back the old or introduce innovations?

What is a restaurant menu but a list of food with prices? Many would like to believe that. Wrong! We might often think of the menu of an eatery as a comprehensive catalog of food and beverages, but in reality (and technically) it’s a lot more than a few colorful pages. Though it’s a wholesome showcase of what you are offering to your customers, it’s also your road to profitability.

Read on, as we break down why and how your restaurant menu needs to evolve and change from time to time.

How often should a restaurant menu change?

The pandemic saw a huge transformation in people’s dining habits and the food they prefer, whether they are dining out or ordering in. Also, as our lifestyles constantly change, customers also expect changes in the food they eat at their favorite restaurants. This has pushed many restauranteurs to revamp their menu and for some, it’s the new norm, while others are returning to their old favorites.

Let’s say you do want to change your restaurant menu, how often should you do it? Research says, that you should update your menu at least once a year, or seasonally. For instance, if your summer menu includes a lot of cooling and spicy dishes with fresh, seasonal produce, then your winter menu can’t include the same. From fall through the cold season, your menu should offer something heartier and more warming. Depending on the kind of establishment you own, you need to upgrade or update what you offer. In some cases, you might also want to go for a complete overhaul, depending on how long you been running the menu and how often you have changed it. Revisiting your menu once in a while is also good for your overhead costs, and helps manage unnecessary expenses.

Should you stick to the old restaurant menu or bring some flavor innovation?

First of all, it’s important to understand what we mean and understand by “changes”. You don’t necessarily need to toss your current menu completely unless it’s absolutely not working for your customers or for your profitability. One of the exceptions is farm-to-table restaurants that run seasonally. So, once the season is over, your restaurant menu has to be overhauled. For other cases, here are a few best practices that might be helpful.

Introducing new flavors – People love newness and adding something new to your existing restaurant menu is sure to fulfill that desire of your customers. You can introduce a couple of new dishes (or classic dishes with different ingredients) that are trendy and innovative, something that your customers wouldn’t expect but will be excited to see on the menu. It adds diversity to your menu while keeping your top-sellers and customer favorites intact. You can run these as specials (weekends, festivals, special days, etc.), along with your regulars. Alternatively, depending on how long you have been adding

Old menu, new package – This is a middle approach when you don’t want to change your entire menu but want to add something refreshing to it. Visual experience is the key to the purchase decision. And that’s the golden rule of sales and marketing. Although your customers like your current menu, a little touch-up can change that to “love” and “excitement”.

From changing the name and description of the dish to adding a new color, the latest photo/s of the dish, and even the font, you can be strategic in the smallest places and bring in big changes. Another significant change that successful restaurants have been introducing, is the price display. Many top establishments have gotten rid of the $ sign. This makes customers focus less on the right side and pay more attention to the dish and what they want. Some places have even forgone the price part altogether, but that’s a discussion for another time.

Stick to the favorites – You know how we often say, “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke”? Well, the thing is, your restaurant menu might not be broken, per se, but customers are constantly seeking change, while also seeking to hold onto their favorites when they visit your restaurant. To balance these two needs, you can hold onto the dishes that are i) profitable and popular and, ii) crowd-pullers, even if they don’t always fill the till. It’s not only good for customer appeal but also retains your brand image.

To answer the question we posed earlier, there’s no absolute answer. At the end of the day, changing a restaurant menu is a matter of trial and error and it all comes down to cost and resource availability. But whatever you try, every time you introduce a change, you need to monitor and analyze the metrics closely and see how the changes are affecting your sales as well as the popularity of your establishment.