Building a better menu: Tools and pricing strategies

In the restaurant industry, crafting a menu design that keeps customers happy while boosting your bottom line is critical.

Fortunately, with the right tools and pricing strategies, you can optimize your menu design to bring in more revenue while still satisfying your guests.

Essential menu-building tools

Entegra's guide, "Build a better menu: Solving the profit vs. price puzzle," offers a toolbox for menu development. Here are some key insights you'll find in the guide:

• Sales-data analysis: Dive deep into your sales data to understand which menu items are performing well and which ones may need adjustments. By analyzing sales trends, you can identify popular dishes, seasonal variations and emerging trends to inform your menu decisions.
• Cost-of-goods-sold (COGS) analysis: Evaluate the cost of ingredients relative to the selling price of menu items to ensure you maintain healthy profit margins. Understanding your COGS allows you to make informed pricing decisions and optimize profitability.
• Margin analysis: Calculate the profit margin for each menu item to identify high-margin and low-margin offerings. By focusing on items with higher margins, you can maximize profitability and strategically adjust pricing or portion sizes on less profitable items.
• Customer feedback and preference data: Collect feedback from customers through surveys, reviews and direct interactions to understand their preferences and dining experiences. Incorporating customer feedback into menu decisions can help you tailor offerings to meet customer expectations and enhance satisfaction.

Create effective pricing strategies

Putting thought into pricing is more important than ever, not just from a bottom-line perspective but in light of inflation. Menu pricing strategies for restaurants include:

• Value-based pricing: Instead of just focusing on ingredient costs, consider the unique value your dishes offer. This could be premium ingredients, innovative cooking methods or a great dining experience. By highlighting this value for high-end, unique or sustainable/organic food, you can justify higher prices and make customers perceive your menu as a good deal.
• Dynamic pricing: Staying flexible in a competitive market is important. Entegra culinary experts suggest dynamic pricing, which allows you to adjust menu prices based on things like seasonal demand, supply chain issues or competitor pricing. This helps you optimize revenue and maintain profitability.
• Bundle pricing: Encourage upselling and increase average order value with bundled meals or combo packages. This strategy not only offers good value to customers but also simplifies operations and inventory management for your restaurant.

With our new menu engineering guide, you’ll get the tools and pricing strategies you need to thrive in a competitive market. By leveraging these solutions and adopting strategic pricing approaches, you can design menus that drive profits, satisfy diners and position your business for long-term success.

Want to learn more? Download our new guide, “Build a better menu: Solving the profit vs. price puzzle.”

Questions? Contact us using this form and someone from the Entegra team will be in touch.