For many people, going out to a restaurant is a luxury experience. We get to be waited on, served, and cleaned up after. When one of those services doesn’t go as expected, we tend to associate our time as bad experience.
Unfortunately, as restaurant owners and managers, you can’t expect every guest who walks through your door to have a positive experience every time. There are too many variables, such as staff, weather, and customer emotions (maybe they were already having a bad day).
While you cannot control these variables, there are certain aspects of your restaurant that can sway your customers’ experience. For example, music. When a restaurant plays the same soundtrack on a loop and the music is more a nuance than entertainment, that could drive guests from enjoying their meals and never returning.
Another example is your restaurant’s aesthetic. It is important to keep a cohesive style and ambiance throughout your restaurant in order to make the experience memorable for guests. They will remember that your wall mural in the dining room matched the smaller pieces in the restrooms. They will notice how the napkins brought out a unique tie in to the tablecloths.
One more important aspect you can control for your guest experience is how well-made your menu is. Depending on the restaurant, a menu is the first thing guests will see and feel before they get their food.
The menu can either tell customers that your restaurant is laidback or more formal. You must consider your restaurants brand and aesthetic when choosing your menu design.
A fast food restaurant would not be wise if they chose leather bound menus. A five-star seafood restaurant would not choose a double-sided laminate menu. There isn’t anything wrong with either of those menus but it is crucial to think about the customer who is visiting the restaurant and what they would like for their experience.
Starting with the menu cover, you have several different options for your menu cover. Examples include: bonded leather, wood, hardcover, laminate, and uv printed paper. We dive more into these on our menu cover blog post here!
When it comes to the content inside your menu, there are a couple of tips we have learned over the years. First, don’t overwhelm your guests with too many options. Analysis paralysis happens at restaurants as well as with big life decisions!
Another tip is to make prices less of a direct point in the menu. When prices are listed in a column, it is easy for customers to scan for the lowest price and choose that. Adding the price to the end of the description is a great way to make it less of a bold statement.
Use photos of your food intentionally through your menu. We love seeing pictures of the delicious food you make at your restaurant while we print, but too many pictures make the menus feel cheap and overdone.
When creating the content and imagery on your menu, we always advise hiring a professional graphic designer. Designers understand the rules of print design in regards to coloring, branding, and image bleeds. We want to ensure your menu turns out exactly as you expected, so using a graphic design will help you achieve that goal.
Once content has been approved, we work with you to determine the type of materials you’d like to include in your menu. This is the time you decide the type of menu cover you’d like to use as well as the type of paper inside the menu. We have plenty of options for finishes but our most popular paper finishing technique is laminate or UV Coating.
When we finish choosing your cover, paper, and bound options, we are ready to print! You can expect to relax during this process. It’s our turn to do the hard work!
For more information on menu printing, contact us here! We are happy to serve all hospitality businesses including restaurants, spas, hotels, golf clubs, and resorts.
A restaurant’s menu plays a significant role in enhancing the dining experience of its customers. It provides information about the food, guides guests through special offerings, and represents the restaurant’s brand image. Therefore, it’s important to craft the menu thoughtfully.
When designing your restaurant’s menu, you should focus on making it functional, user-friendly and attractive. After all, it will create the first impression of your business on the customers and add to the overall appeal of your restaurant.
If you’re planning to redesign and print your restaurant menu, then here are six tips from Micro Printing Ltd., a leading printing service provider in Mississauga.
If the menu is not easy to read, it can negatively affect the overall impression. Instead of listing everything, divide the menu into logical sections using boxes and arrange the food items in a sequence. Start with the appetizers, followed by the main course, desserts and beverages. This will help customers in searching through the dishes in the same way they would order.
It might be tempting to add several photographs of delicious dishes from your menu. But, if you don’t have high-quality and attractive photographs, then it would be wise to avoid using low-grade pictures. Also, if you don’t have a signature style of garnishing and serving your dishes, then photographs can create false impressions. To avoid that, consider using illustrations or graphics as they are universally appealing and add a surprise element to the plates. However, if you have a good budget and professional photographer at your disposal, you can use high-resolution images of the dishes.
Menu descriptions are important for enticing the appetites of your guests. Add clear, straightforward and expressive descriptions of the dishes you want people to notice. Diners are likely to scan those dishes that have a narrative along with them first. This will also help you promote the unique items available only at your restaurant.
By only adding descriptions to your special food items, this won’t make them pop on the menu. Draw attention toward premium or special dishes by dedicating a section to them. Highlight them with attractive symbols such as an arrow, a banner, a decorative box or a frame. It will give an interesting visual break to your guests and act as an outstanding accent to your menu design.
Pick a few high contrast colours for your menu to offer a visual treat to your guests before the real treat. But, make sure that the colour scheme reflects your restaurant’s brand and style. This will help set the mood of the restaurant. Add elements of your business’ interior design when selecting the menu hue and complement it with contrasting colours to make it visually interesting.
Placing too much importance on the currency sign throughout a menu is a big no. Focus on offering the best-in-class dining experience to your customers rather than making them overly aware of how much they’re spending. Give place to numbers and don’t emphasize currency signs.
A well-designed and easy-to-read menu will keep your customers coming back to you for more. Use the above-mentioned tips when creating a new look to your restaurant’s menu and see the difference it makes in driving sales. With that being said, to make the most of your design, remember to develop your menus from a trusted printing company in Mississauga. To learn more about menu printing, contact us at (905) 670-7309.