Restaurant Promotion Ideas #11. Menus

Another great promotional tool that is often overlooked is your restaurant menu. Like I have mentioned in my Previous Post “Creating Great Customer Service Culture", first impression counts. Remember that the entire menu will compliment the restaurant theme. If your menu is not appetizing to look at, people will have the same impression of your food. Most restaurants put fancy words to describe their food. But fancy words and fancy fonts to me can be a deterrent for people to order something different from what they know. Most people will not take a chance in ordering an item that they are not sure about or they might not like. Also avoid jargons or terms that only a few people can understand. I have seen some menus that are so beautiful like a works of art, a masterpiece but if your customers finds it hard to read then what's the point. It’s like a beautifully painted house without any door, you can't get in. The menu must also be easily readable, so the size of the font is equally as important as what font you plan to use. The lighting in your place is another factor to consider when choosing your characters. If your place is designed to be dimly lit, then a bright colored font will be great. Usually, dark colored font on a white or light colored paper is much easier to read. I worked in a pub where the words in the menu were luminous as the place was dark. I felt that this is a great idea.


Recently in the Coffeeshop that I manage, I have added pictures of the food to our menu. I recently took up another hobby. Its photography which I took up after our owner gave the hotel a DSLR camera. Reason is he saw that with today's technology we could add food pictures to our printed materials and didn't need a professional to take out the photos for us. We could do it by ourselves and put in on the menu easily. By adding pictures next to the description of the food, I have noticed that the customers were more adventurous. Trying out different items. But make sure your kitchen brings out the food exactly as what is in the picture, or else you will have a lot of problems. Take mouthwatering shots like the pink area of a lamb, the juicy part of the steak. I usually use Google Image to see what other restaurants use to get an idea on how my pictures should look like. In this sense the saying “A picture says a thousand words" it’s true. A beautifully photographed picture of your food is thousand times better than all the description you can write.

Also pay attention to how your menu looks. If it’s old and tattered discard it. A dirty menu will also turn away the guest.

For more of my Restaurant Promotional Ideas, please go to my website Restaurant Promo Ideas

Don’t Eliminate the Middle Man—Add One!

I came across this interesting article by Richard Saporito. It highlights that the service personnel in your restaurant is equally as important as the chef at the back. As mentioned in my Creating Great Customer Service Culture , 60% of restaurants fail in the first year. Reason being is that the food is only 20% contribution to the sucess of the restaurant. The article is as follow.

Don’t Eliminate the Middle Man—Add One!

Today, there are situations when we actually add a “middle person” instead of eliminating one for increased service efficiency. If it’s cost-effective and demand is high, then proper market positioning will make it a worthwhile endeavor. For example, my sister just informed me of a food delivery service in New Mexico that will let you choose one out of many different food outlets (all types of ethnic/fast food)- and then guarantees delivery within a specific time period. This not only gives the customer assurance of reliability, but more choices for dining take –out style.


In other areas of industry, the same idea holds true. There are electrical suppliers that no longer manufacture the product of electricity, but now are involved only in the delivery process of electricity to the customers. Because of market fluctuations, the new delivery supplier will utilize many other different energy suppliers to get the product of electricity to the customer efficiently and at the best market price. Again, adding the middle man seems to benefit all around.

In relating this theory to restaurants, it is the food runner that has become popular, especially in the larger dining establishments that rarely existed years ago. Food runners are employees who only work the rush hours of the dining room- only running food back and forth from the kitchen to the tables with light dining room table interaction (condiments, fresh pepper etc.). It is a 2-4 hr. shift, depending on how long the dining rush lasts.

Before large restaurants existed, the waiter would complete the process of order taking and delivering of the food. Today, the food runner can be implemented (additional middle man) relieving the waiter of this time consuming and sometimes painstaking process. The waiter must share a percentage of his tip with the runner, but in return his job is eased because the food is delivered for him- allowing extra time to work more tables and up sell to customers thereby increasing sales. Though, it does remain the waiter’s nresponsibility to check the table for additional diner needs-- either while the food is being placed by the runner or shortly thereafter. The tip-out to the runner is usually 10-15% depending on the service system, but well worth it if waiter sales can increase by 20-30 %.

The main point is the food runner addition improves delivery service efficiency while being cost-effective (if the sales increase outweighs the payroll increase). Properly integrating employees into the dining room with exact middle man connections always makes for smooth service flow. It’s not a matter of just blindly throwing extra employees at a service problem, but organizing the best system possible with the minimal amount of labor.

Adding the middle man can sometimes streamline operations in such way that it becomes irresistible and impossible to ignore. Always, the demand arises when delivery routes of a service system become overloaded.

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About the author: Richard Saporito is a NYC Restaurant Insider with more than 30 years experience. He is currently the President of Topserve Restaurant Consulting, Inc. and the author of "How To Improve Dining Room Service." Discover how to improve your restaurant's dining room service and dramatically increase your profits here: How to Improve Dining Room Service E- Book


Restaurant Promo Ideas