Menu Engineering: How To Design a Menu That Drives Sales

Knowing how to design your menu with menu engineering can be the difference between being profitable and bankrupt. Our data shows that a well-designed menu can attract new customers, with 48% of guests willing to try a restaurant because of it.

Think about it: Your menu is the engine that powers your restaurant. So it makes sense to fine-tune it. 

Ready to turn your menu into a sales machine? Below, I’ll teach you the secrets to restaurant menu engineering and how you can use them in your menu to drive sales and profits.

What is menu engineering?

Menu engineering is the art of designing a menu that helps your restaurant make more money. It involves showing off your best sellers and organizing your menu to help customers find what they like faster.

A well-designed menu can really grow your business by:

• Spotlighting high-profit items: By placing your best-selling dishes in the best spots on your menu, customers are more likely to order them. This strategy helps your customers pick these items. Doing so can help increase average check sizes and boost profits for your restaurant.‍
• Enhancing the customer experience: A well-organized menu isn’t just about profits. It also creates a smoother experience for customers. By strategically arranging items, you make it easy for guests to find dishes they’re interested in. This makes things easier and more enjoyable for your customers—a major win since our data revealed that convenience matters to 63% of guests when they order. ‍
• Maximize upsell opportunities: Thoughtful menu design can help you identify and promote easy add-ons (like sides, toppings, or signature cocktails). Strategically placing these items can encourage customers to explore more of what you offer.

Menu engineering is all about aligning your menu with your business goals. It helps create an experience that gets you more money and creates happy customers. 

6 ways to use menu engineering to drive sales 

I’ll show you six easy ways to use menu engineering to get new customers into your restaurant, starting with finding your menu market fit. 

1. Match your offerings to your target customers   

First, you’ll want to find what customers in your area want from your restaurant and what they’re searching for. I like to call this “finding your menu market fit.” 

I’d suggest using Google’s Keyword Planner to see what local diners are searching for. For example, if people in your city are looking up “best fish tacos” and you sell them, that’s your cue! You have the chance to become their go-to spot.

This tool gives you insight into popular local cravings so you can tailor your menu to match. 

What you can do: Once you know what people want, create dedicated pages on your website for those dishes—like “birria tacos in San Diego.” This local SEO strategy helps your restaurant show up in more searches and attract more hungry customers.

2. Highlight your top sellers

Making sure you build your menu around your top sellers is one of the most important parts of the menu engineering matrix. This is essentially a way to look at how popular and profitable your menu items are to decide which ones to keep, improve or promote.

Even small details, like the placement of each dish and the visuals you use, can make a big difference in your sales trends. 

And our data backs it up. 61% of guests say item photos are one the most important features on a menu—just make sure they’re high quality if you want to entice customers. 

But first, you need to figure out what your top sellers are. 

I suggest putting your data into this spreadsheet I made to see how each item is performing. Here are the key restaurant costs you should add to your spreadsheet: 

• Food cost percentage: The amount you spend on the ingredients that make up a menu item. Your top sellers will often have a lower percentage since they’re more profitable. ‍
• Contribution margin: Money left over after covering food costs. This goes toward fixed costs and generating profit. Items that are selling well will often have a higher contribution margin.
• ‍Sales volume: This represents how much of a dish you sold. Best sellers will have a higher sales volume than less popular items. 

Once you have your items in your spreadsheet, categorize them into the four categories of the menu engineering matrix: 

1. Stars: Stars are your money-makers—they're both popular and profitable. These are the dishes you want to keep consistent and promote heavily.
2. Puzzles: Puzzles are the opposite of your stars. They're profitable but not very popular. The challenge here is to increase their popularity. You could try lowering the price a bit or placing them in a more prominent place on your menu.
3. Plow horses: These items are popular like Stars but less profitable. You might want to tweak the recipe or portion sizes to increase their profit margin.
4. Duds: These items are neither profitable nor popular. Usually, it’s best to remove these from your menu altogether. You could try to rework their ingredients and recipes to make them more profitable. Or, you could feature them as specials to try and make them more popular.

By understanding each item's category, you can choose where to cut costs and where to raise prices. You can also see which recipes need a makeover.

What you can do: If one of your “Plow Horses” has a low contribution margin, you might cut its food cost or pair it with high-profit sides and drinks. If you have a “Puzzle” that's not selling well, you might experiment with its placement on the menu or improve its description to make it more appealing.

3. Design your menu in a Z-shaped pattern 

In the last section, I showed you how to build the right menu. Now, I’ll teach you how to design your physical, in-restaurant menu. 

When it comes to design, menu psychology plays a big role. For example, people read menus in a “z” pattern, meaning they start at the top-left, move to the top-right, then diagonally down to the bottom left, and finally across to the bottom right.

This means the menu’s top-right corner, top-left corner, and center are prime real estate. 

What you can do: Place the best sellers you found in the prime real estate areas. Then, you can incorporate visual elements like bolding, boxes, and photos to make those dishes really stand out. 

4. Nail your menu descriptions  

Menu descriptions are the text beside your dishes that explain what it is. Menu photos are how customers 'window shop' your dishes, making a powerful first impression. So they really matter. A well-written menu description can certainly engage and attract customers.

What you can do: Use descriptive adjectives and highlight where your ingredients come from in your menu descriptions.  

To nail this, I recommended these easy tips: 

• Use descriptive language that paints a vivid picture in your customer's mind. For example, instead of simply writing "Grilled Chicken Sandwich," you could describe it as "Tender, locally sourced chicken breast, grilled to perfection and served on a toasted artisan bun with crisp lettuce and juicy tomatoes." 
• ‍Highlight the quality and origin of your dishes. Use terms like "farm-fresh," "house-made," or "locally sourced" to emphasize quality. This justifies higher prices and increases perceived value.
• ‍Blend prices into your description by adding a small number at the end of the description. Instead of "$15—Truffle Fries," try this: "Hand-cut fries tossed in truffle oil, topped with Parmesan, fresh herbs and a sprinkle of sea salt, served with a side of garlic aioli. 15"

My friends over at Metro Pizza do this well. They make sure their menu descriptions are descriptive and capture their food’s quality. They use words like “buttery, can’t resist fries” and “soft fresh-baked garlic knots” to talk about some of their dishes:

5. Stick to a certain number of items

My rule for menus: Less is more. Having fewer menu items means you can:

• Focus on the quality and amount of ingredients
• Reduce costs since you’ll need less inventory 
• Help diners make decisions faster

Giving customers too many options can lead to overload, so it’s crucial not to have a long list of dishes.   

What you can do: Stick to a specific number of items that you include for each category on your menu.  

Here’s a quick breakdown of how many items I’d include for each:

6. Price your items to get demand

Pricing plays a key role in attracting new diners. Our data shows that 41% of customers are influenced by pricing when looking for a new restaurant to try. So having your menu pricing strategy down is a must.

This works by presenting prices through menu psychology and strategy for pricing items. With menu psychology, you’re using menu design to subtly nudge customers toward your most profitable items. Do this easily by: 

• Removing currency signs from your menu: This can help customers feel less price-conscious. This is like the example in step four, where we just added the price number without the dollar sign after the description. ‍
• Use round numbers for upscale restaurants: This helps give a cleaner and more premium look to your menu. So, instead of “12.99,” you’d just add “13.” ‍
• Use price anchoring: Place a high-priced item at the top of your menu to set a "price anchor" in customers' minds. This makes your other, slightly cheaper dishes seem like a better deal and encourages customers to choose those options.

Here are some pricing strategy tips I’d suggest:  

• Offer flex prices: Provide special menu prices or deals at certain times of the day, like lunch specials, happy hour discounts, or Taco Tuesday offers. Doing this can really boost demand and bring in more customers during slower hours.
• Match prices: Make your prices the same as competitors for similar dishes. This works well with restaurants that want to attract more price-sensitive customers.

These menu pricing tips not only make your menu look better, but also guide customers toward choices that help you make more money.

Unlock the full potential of your menu with the right design 

Knowing how to set up your menu the right way can seem challenging at first. But, it only takes a few of these menu engineering strategies to get on the right path to a menu that sells.   

We can help bring your menu to life online and automate many of the tactics shared in this guide. If that sounds good, let’s partner up! To get started, try out a free demo with Owner today.  

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