Menu Printing: 3 Simple Elements that Increase Food Sales

If you are a restaurant owner, chances are you are always looking for ways to increase your food sales without spending a ton of money on advertising. What many restaurants do not realize is that their menu can have a huge impact on how much food customers order from you, which foods they order and the frequency of their orders.

Different paper stocks, coatings, color vs. black and white, inclusion of pictures, etc. – every element needs to be carefully considered if you want to maximize your restaurant’s profitability.

After working with over 4,000 restaurants, we’ve found out exactly which 3 elements that can make or break a menu; and, more importantly, what you can do to leverage these elements into additional, recurring profits for your establishment. In this article we’ll briefly cover this 3 elements, and give you tips on how to incorporate them the next time you design and print menus.

Element #1 – Color is King!

One tip to sell more food when it comes to menu printing is that you have to print in color. If you print your menu is printed in dingy black and white ink, it will more than likely do more harm than good.
Cost isn’t an excuse, either!

Our full-color menus are the same price as buying black and white copies from your local printer – if not cheaper. So the next time you print new menus for your restaurant, be sure they are printed in vibrant, eye-catching colors!

Element #2 – Feature Your Highest Margin Items in Pictures

It’s no secret that beautiful pictures of food entice customers to splurge on more expensive dishes and items. Therefore, an easy way to capitalize on this is by including pictures of your more profitable items in large, colorful pictures on your menu.

By highlighting less popular, high profit items, you will increase the probability of them being ordered – which is great for your bottom line.

Element #3 – Suggest Favorite Dishes

By nature, people love to make easy decisions. Therefore, we’ve found an easy way to increase sales of a certain dish or food item is to mark it as a “favorite” or “signature” dish. By including special icons, highlighting, or “boxing” the item with a border, you can draw attention to a high profit item and make that customer’s meal decision that much easier.

Another way is to have your server or cashier who takes the order, suggest specific items. Think about it: how do you think Outback sells so many Blooming Onions? Okay, they are delicious – but there is an even more logical reason that 50% of the tables on any given night start their meal with a Blooming Onion. That’s right, the server suggests it after dropping off drinks.

Adding these 3 simple elements to your menu design can make a monumental difference in your restaurant’s average order size, frequency and profits.

If you would like to see real examples of these elements in action, click here to request free samples. We’ll ship your menus out next business day via USPS. Sorry, U.S. restaurant owners only.