Menu Make-over
January 19, 2010 by Jonathan Munsell
Filed under Restaurant Marketing Tools
I jumped into a conversation today about menu makeover which is really lesson in menu engineering.
It is worth a look.
______________________________________________________
It started on www.Restaurant-Community.com run by KNG (Formerly King Uniform and Menus)
Here are a couple threads:
In response to my offer to have the restaurant community forum take on a menu design make-over, Lynn from The Soda Fountain has requested your help and advice on their menu. Please follow this attachment to see their current menu Soda Fountain Menu
Please ask questions and make suggestions by replying to this thread. If you are not already a member, please sign up and join the fun
The first thing that I would like to know is, what style and size of menu covers are you using? You have 5 pages so what are you doing with the other view in your menu cover? Are you open to changing the size and style of menu?
The main issue I see with your menu is the lack of white space on pages two and three. If you compare pages four and five to those pages you should see that it is much easier on your eyes. It is also easier to lead people to the items that are your specialties. These are the items that are going to bring people back again and again.
I will search some design sites and see if I can find a good description of how to use white space in your design. If I can’t find that I will do a quick white paper on the subject. It is a very important aspect of design.
Besides our burgers, our All Day Entrees are where we really shine. Yes the restaurant is a fun atmosphere but we don’t want to be known as a burger joint. We will not have the crowd we need for dinner just on burgers. I would agree we need more spacing but I was unsure of how to make that happen. I designed the menu and all of the descriptions but I am not a menu designer nor do I have expertise in the subject. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Lynn
I like to think the first rule of designing a menu is keeping it true to your theme and you have. You make it fun to read and appetizing. Here are a few changes I would make.
Let talk color scheme. Heavy borders are overpowering and are creating an illusion of tight space within the menu “this is called lack of whitespace.” If you need a border then try one along the top and bottom this will open it up. Bring a color into the categories and item. Bold dark colors. Blue, Deep Red, Green etc (Keep in mind that red is always hard on the eyes) If space allows photos of your theme or food are always a nice option.
Fonts. I’m not crazy about “Font Diner.” But the descriptions are easy to read. Not crazy how titles are centered then items are left align with indent. Center it all or left align all. Another thing you could do is add 3 columns to the top and maybe 2 at the bottom to create flow. Keep in mind that on a two page menu the readers eyes move in a “Z formation” So you want to place things in other zones that will drawn attention.
Let’s talk about food and profit. I don’t see any one item that sticks out. Showcase your “hot” items by boxing them in or adding a tiny graphic “icon” that specifies this is a house specialty.
Prices. I assume your customers come to you because they love your food and atmosphere so remove the price “$7.99” right after the item’s name and place it behind the description in the description font size. Remove the dollar it will give your menu a cleaner feel. You have all your prices ending in 9’s which is very smart.
I love your menu item’s name. Very fun and I can see a lot of thought when into it and it shows.
Check out food networks Food Trends of the 2010…keeping it real, grandma’s cooking with a twist. Locally grown…. If you have a chance to incorporate any of these into your menu as Martha would say “It’s a Good Thing”. Best wishes. Donna
Good luck and keep us posted as you make changes.
Jonathan Munsell
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Build Your Restaurant Systems
January 16, 2010 by Jonathan Munsell
Filed under Guides and Plans, Operations Tools, Restaurant Start-up, Systems & Operations
Build systems for even the littlest repetitive actions. It is as easy as writing down the things that happen as part of a process. Example: if you are always the opener and you know it inside out and backwards then simply make a chronological list of what you do.
5:55 Pull into parking lot (look around for anything out of the norm)
6 Enter building and deactivate the alarm
6:05 Read Managers Log from the close
6:10 Walk Restaurant and review the close from the night before (make Notes)
Etc
Imagine You Had a Detailed List of Everything You Do
If you did it you would have a pretty strong “How to Guide” for your restaurant or what we refer to as an Operations Manual. Granted this takes time, but as the old saying goes “How do you eat an elephant? …One bite at a time” Start with the basics and work to more detailed items later. I suggest start with Opening Checklist and Closing Checklist. It makes the most sense to enlist someone to help with one of these because you cannot be there all the time. So if you can’t be there but “Your List” is there for them to follow and sign off when done then you should get pretty close results to what you would do. They will miss stuff at first or not do it with as much detail but that is why you delegate not abdicate. Delegation has the one major difference – You Must Follow-up!
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How To Get More Done In Your Restaurant
November 25, 2009 by Jonathan Munsell
Filed under Coaching, Leadership Development, Restaurant Success Secrets, Systems, Systems & Operations
This video is part of a series of videos where I , Jonathan Munsell, answer questions and offer hard hitting comments that you can use to improve your restaurant immediately!
Restaurant Success System and Restaurant Success Monthly provide these videos to help accelerate your Restaurant Success. The videos are usually centered on Restaurant Operations, Restaurant Finance, Restaurant Marketing & Promotions or the Restaurant Management Tools and Restaurant Systems necessary to achieve higher sales and grow your restaurant or Catering profits by leaps and bounds
Restaurant Success System and Restaurant Success Monthly were both founded and created by Jonathan Munsell a very active restaurant owner and advocate for the industry. Jonathan Currently owns several restaurants and a catering company.
For more information or to view all the videos in the series go to www.RestaurantGoldMine.com
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Expert Interview: Jonathan Munsell Interviews Equipment Specialist Lenny Douglas from Tundra Specialties
Best Practices for Restaurant Owners and Industry Professionals Monthly Benchmarking and Money-making Teleseminar:
How To Insure You Have The Best Restaurant Supply, Parts and Equipment Company For Your Start-up and Existing Restaurant
Jonathan Interviews Lenny Douglas with Tundra Specialties.
Opening and maintaining a restaurant is always a challenge. This conversation will help you on your way to building a success from the start.
- We talk about the very basics (The Restaurant Development Process) of starting with a drawing, mapping out the plan in order to get a good understanding of the goal.
- We talk about understanding the options from big equipment, to counter equipment and storage, all the way to small ware.
- We even talk about what to look for in an equipment vendor.
About your Hosts:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jonathan Munsell owns two restaurant brands and a catering company. Jonathan Munsell works with current and aspiring restaurant owners specializing in restaurant startup and growth. In 2007, Jonathan launched Restaurant Success System conducting national seminars and professionally speaking on restaurant startup, restaurant operations, restaurant marketing and finance. Learn more about Jonathan by visiting www.RestaurantSuccessMonthly.com
Lenny Douglas is the Sales Manager for Tundra Specialties, which is a company that specializes in restaurant parts, supplies and equipment. Lenny grew up in Tampa Florida. He moved to Colorado in 1997, waited tables and was bartender for several locations. Lenny attended University Colorado in 1999 for Computer Science, then made a change in direction and left engineering school. Lenny then worked for a foodservice sales position with Old Timer Foods working with Regional Restaurants selling a variety of food products. He met Rob Fenton, part owner and Sales Manager with Tundra, and has been working for Tundra Specialties since January 1, 2003, starting in the Outside Sales Team.
You can find out more about equipment and connect with Tundra Specialties by visiting their website www.etundra.com or check out their blog “The Back Burner”
Their blogs about the foodservice industry at The Back Burner, which is written by the employees of Tundra Specialties, a company specializing in restaurant equipment and food service supplies.
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Effectively Manage Your Restaurant and Your Life.
November 17, 2009 by Jonathan Munsell
Filed under Health & Energy Management, Human Resources, Leadership Development, Restaurant Success Secrets, Training: Management
Effectively Manage Your Restaurant and Your Life.
If you’re like most restaurant owners, you have more to do than
time to do it.
But too many Restaurant Owners get so wrapped up in their business, they forget to take care of the other aspects of their lives. And the results can be devastating! Families are neglected, friends are lost, and the physical and mental health of the restaurant owner declines. (Just to name a few.)
So here are some tips for being able to successfully manage your company and your life:
- Put systems into place- mistakes are made when processes are not systematized. When processes are consistent, fewer mistakes are made and there are fewer fires to put out.
- Take a day off- despite the temptation to work a 7-day week, take at least one day for yourself. You will see your productivity and your health improve. (Not to mention how happy your family will be to see you.)
- Go home- set a time schedule for yourself. Schedule the number of hours you will work and stick to that plan.
- Set your priorities- there’s always another crisis to solve. So be sure to make special occasions with friends and family a top priority. Don’t allow a restaurant “emergency” to hold you back. After all, there’s bound to be another one tomorrow.
- Automate your business- this is sometimes an odd topic for restaurant owners, but there are many places to automate your restaurant and I am not just talking about the POS System. If you haven’t taken the time to realize the value of automation, do so soon. Places you can automate – Any recurring task like weekly emails or marketing mailers, costing your food, paying your bills can even be automated and save you a ton of time. With your business on auto-pilot you have more time for other things.
None of the stuff in this email is new to you. You know it all. But unless you are willing to take these suggestions to heart, you will never be able to effectively manage your life.
And remember, nobody ever lay on their deathbed wishing they had spent more time at the Restaurant!
I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics I present and their link to True Restaurant Success. Please do not hesitate to share – Leave a Comment
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How to Market Restaurant Specialty Items for the Holidays
November 4, 2009 by Jonathan Munsell
Filed under Low Cost No Cost Restaurant Marketing, Restaurant Marketing, Restaurant Marketing - Online, Restaurant Marketing Tools, Restaurant Promotion, Systems & Operations
A question was posed by one of our Restaurant Success Monthly Members, Buddy Guilbeau:
Do you have any ideas on how to increase my corporate hams sales for the holidays? How about ideas on advertising my hams for the holidays?
I thought this may be one of those questions that others may want to ‘hear’ the response, so I’m posting it for all to see. Buddy’s question:
My response:
I think that advertising for Ham Sales, in your case, or Gift Cards or even specialty meals packed to go for the holidays all have a similar approach.
The low cost / no cost restaurant marketing tactic is always “4 Walls Marketing”. Make sure the 4 walls of your place are communicating the message you would most like to push. This includes a multitude of ways and media to communicate the message.
4 walls:
Signage
Bathrooms Signage (one of my favorites) on the mirror or the back of the stall. Think about the captured audience potential.
Entrance Signage – Hit them before they even get in the door. You program them to be thinking about anything you want before they even open the door. I like to use a question “How Can You Get A Free Ham This Holiday?”. It plants the question and they will want to figure it out and will most likely ask.
Interior Signage - Wherever appropriate, get a sign conveying your message. You can even play off the door signage and either answer the question or ask more questions and make it a game.
Table tent or flyer on every table in the place.
Bag stuffer in every bag that goes out the door - whether it’s To Go food or delivery. Get one on every plate or tray served or with every check you present. Don’t just bury it in the check presenter; put it right on top. Put the bag stuffer with every catering order and in every box lunch.
Email your list – craft a series of emails that keeps your message in front of your guests and intrigues them.
Website – Post it on your website. Have a link from the promotion in your email to more details available online. Online you can spell out all the details and benefits and exactly who the offer is perfect for or applies best.
Contest – Have a contest to give away a FREE item that you are promoting then have a big sign and a business card drop or little form to be filled out. The people that “Opt-in” the contest must want the prize so even if they don’t win send them a runner up prize for a special discount or offer that works with what you are promoting.
Mail your list – A direct response mail piece targeted to your existing guests, that already know you will cut through the mail clutter and can draw a huge response. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive. It could even be part of a regular mail cycle like a newsletter. Something you may want to try is drop out piece/insert that takes them out of the newsletter and is obvious when they open it.
Buy a list of the top 50 employers in your area and mail them. This message needs to be a little different because they may not know who you are. In this case you want to use direct response tactics like we teach in the Restaurant Success System, i.e. Headline, compelling copy, offer, expiration to just mention a few.
At the end of the day there is no magic bullet that is going to sell a million products but when you combine a bunch of methods you will reap results from all of them and your overall response will be tremendous.
Just like with everything else you have to take action. Start with the items that you like from above and that are easy for you. Then work to add one a day until at the end of a week or so you have a tremendous amount of communication and marketing all working to sell your product.
For details and examples of everything mentioned above check out RestaurantSuccessSystem.com/noriskoffer/
In the Restaurant Success System you not only get examples, tactics and strategies you also get done for you downloadable pieces. Yes the actual pieces that all you have to do is change your restaurant name and print. It is worth a minute to check it out. RestaurantSuccessSystem.com/noriskoffer/
Thanks for the question, Buddy. I’m sure your interest has helped others out!
Jonathan Munsell
Founder & Creator
Restaurant Success Monthly
Restaurant Success System
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Outrageous Advertising: How Can You Make Your Burger Outrageous!
November 4, 2009 by Jonathan Munsell
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A recent article in Nations Restaurant News prompted me to give some thought to Outrageous Advertising. What product can you take and make over the top and even gain fan fair and maybe even some press?
Here a couple products that I think are way over the top and have garnered both of these restaurants huge press and local buzz.
Diger’s Diner in Brush Colorodo “Home of Colorado’s Biggest Burger”
Colorado’s Biggest Burger
Diggers Diner is serving up a fun filled meal with it’s new State Champion Burger. With 3lbs of ground beef, a pound and a half bun, 8 slices of cheese, 1/2 a tomato, 1/2 an onion, 1/2 a head of lettuce, 1/2 cup of pickles and of course 12oz of fries it is sure to satisfy even the hungriest. Although this burger can be split by at least 6 and still satisfy the brave might choose to compete in the burger challenge. If you Eat ALL of it yourself (includes fries) you will be placed on the wall of fame, get a certificate of completion and of course we will by your burger! There is a 1 hour time limit.
7-patty Whopper promo strikes chord
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November 2, 2009 by Jonathan Munsell
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Jonathan Munsell, Founder & Creator of Restaurant Success System and Restaurant Success Monthly, discusses with Susan Roseman how to take the bits and pieces of restaurant marketing done every month and roll them into a well crafted well oiled machine through automation. Specifically they discuss the hugely positive impact that RepeatRewards has had on systematizing and organizing the majority of the monthly marketing tasks. (this is the advanced preview of the audio portion of a webinar which is being produced into a DVD and is still in the production phase)
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October 30, 2009 by Jonathan Munsell
Filed under Systems & Operations
These are proven hard hitting tactics that every truly successful Restaurant Owner lives by, in today’s economic times and ANY time!
It’s time for a change! Would you agree? Change can be a difficult thing for most everyone, including restaurant owners, especially during economically challenging times. Yet, if you are not seeing the results that you want to be seeing from the things you are doing… change is what you need to do. Just a bit of change can make a lot of difference. A lot of people make excuses for where they are, but in order to overcome the struggles, you need to climb over the hurdles and take responsibility for your actions. It’s imperative in order to have success. In order to make changes, you need different actions, different thoughts, different resources and different tools. You want fresh food in your restaurant… you need fresh ideas too. Make a fresh start!
TAKE ACTION ON THE RIGHT ACTIVITIES. A great idea without action is just still a an idea. It can not make money for you. Choose one idea to start with and start moving forward with the action. Don’t worry about making a decision; you can always make adjustments. But doing nothing is the usually the worst thing you can do. Learn from your mistakes and make changes. By taking actions on the right activities, you will see success!
INVEST IN, CREATE AND USE SYSTEMS TO REPEAT PROCESSES Don’t do everything yourself. You can delegate duties and measure responses. Make a list of all the things that you spend your time on that recur day-to-day or month-to-month. Pick the ones that use up the most amount of your valuable time. Develop a system and delegate or outsource these things. Base it on how much you want to earn in a year. If someone else can do it at a lesser cost, use that resource. You can’t focus on minimum wage activities (slicing, dicing, chopping) and expect to make big money on the other end. You should be managing the system, not being so wrapped up in the restaurants system that you’re a key part of it.
GUESTS, NOT CUSTOMERS At our restaurants, we want people to feel like family or friends visiting our home and to receive that extreme special warmth of hospitality while there. Stop looking at folks who dine at your restaurant as a one-time transaction, and instead start building an ongoing relationship. When guests have a WOW experience at your restaurant, they will tell at least 5 other people and at least one of them will become a loyal guest. Just that bit of a change from customer to guest can make a huge difference in the way people visiting your restaurant will feel. Your employees will feel the difference as well. Developing this on-going relationship and history keeps your guests wanting to come back to your restaurant.
KNOW YOUR NUMBERS This means for every important part of your business. Your restaurants operations numbers, financials and marketing as well as having a way to measure your guests’ experience will help you know how your restaurant rates. Keep a customer database so you can market to your existing, loyal guests. Reward them for their loyalty and have a feedback system in place to see what your guests are thinking. Let your marketing numbers speak for themselves. Cost can become irrelevant if it brings in more than you’re shelling out!
THE MASTER OF MEMORABLE DINING EXPERIENCES If you are working in the operations of your restaurant to be sure everything flows smoothly, then you are placing yourself into the payroll as another employee. You may have many roles that you do, but you certainly can not make the money that you were expecting to make if you are doing a job that you shouldn’t be doing. You must work ON your business instead of IN your business. Once you are doing that well, you need to create a memorable dining experience. This is more than just experiencing dining. What is a memorable dining experience you may ask? Most likely you yourself have been on the receiving side of this once or twice in your life. It’s when you get that Totally Outrageous Service, that over the top every detail taken care of and the connection with the restaurant and/or their staff. Maybe they toured your children through the restaurant when you and your spouse were dining, maybe it was the spot on service, or the way they made you feel when you were leaving and all you thought about was “I don’t want to go”. It comes in many forms and when you have created a memorable dining experience for your guests, you have created raving fans which will drive the income that you expect to receive.
THE IMPORTANCE OF DIRECT RESPONSE MARKETING TO YOUR GUESTS Much of your time, energy, resources and focus need to be put into becoming a better restaurant marketer by creating systematized, measurable marketing. Figure out what you would say to convince someone to dine at your restaurant rather than any other option… and put it in print. Having your guests return and refer friends is the way you can see some of your marketing strategies start to work. Direct response marketing, the type of marketing that makes people take action and respond, needs to be employed in every marketing piece you create. Using the direct response techniques that I use will easily double, triple or even quadruple the average response to any marketing or advertisement. You should figure out ways to make sure your messages evoke a response. Marketing to your restaurant guests creates a relationship that will help you succeed… growing that relationship will grow your success too.
GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE! Become part of a mastermind group where you network with forward thinkers and share ideas regularly, where you can ask questions, get opinions and move forward. Get your staff involved also. When they see the increases in sales and their own personal profit, they too will want to become more involved because it impacts them as well. Constantly look and listen for what your guests want. Keep in touch with what’s happening in the industry locally and in other parts of the country. Trade publications and discussion forums can both be a great source. If you feel stuck in a rut, look at your surroundings and join a group of others who will help you move forward. Virtually all top achievers know that to really get ahead…you’ve got to have a coach. Seek out someone that is advanced in the areas you want to excel and engage them to help you succeed as well.
PROFIT THINKING can often lead to change. The people that are most successful are the ones that will change with the times. If you are still thinking of your restaurant in the same way that you did 5, 10 or 20 years ago, you need to stop limiting yourself, your restaurant and your guests! There are many ways to think about, in which your guests want to purchase food and experience a wonderful dining experience. Think big and your profits will meet you there.
Share your comments below.
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