Showcasing everything you have to offer as a chef, a restauranteur or just as someone who absolutely loves food and lives and breathes their menu; you might be tempted to create an extensive offering of tens of dishes serving every tastebud that steps foot into your restaurant. 

Here’s why that might not be such a great idea and why curating a smaller, more limited menu is the way forward for bringing in more revenue.

1. Customer Efficiency

Reducing your menu size down to just a hand-selected few options removes decision fatigue from your customers and allows them to make quicker choices, avoiding the dreaded “Can you just give us a couple more minutes?”. Reducing the overwhelm helps the customer to decide on the correct dish, rather than them feeling like they need to just pick something for the sake of ordering and then being left feeling like they might have chosen the wrong thing.

2. Quality Control

Having a smaller menu allows for more perfected craftsmanship in the kitchen and makes it easier to keep on top of quality control. Perfecting the few dishes you have is what it’s all about, leaving little opportunities for customers to be dissatisfied.

3. Customer Recognition

Your customers will remember your restaurant as “that place with amazing burgers” or “the only place I’ll get an Indian takeaway”, this is what will keep you booked up.

Take Flat Iron as an example. At the time of writing, they have a total of 8 items on their menu INCLUDING sides. They know what they do best and there’s no confusion about it either. And it works. Just try getting a table at any Flat Iron branch on a Saturday evening, they’re packed solid.

4. Memorable Dishes

Having fewer options on the menu makes the dishes that you do have, more memorable. These standout dishes will become what you are known for and what will keep your customers coming back time and time again. Having too many options to choose from makes all of these dishes blend together. You might have a few dishes that are your bestsellers, but what about if they all became firm favourites? Limited menus DO NOT mean limited choice!

5. Charge a Premium

A limited menu means that when you introduce a new dish, you can really shout about it. It won’t just get lost in the depths of your extensive menu, it will actually stand out and encourage your regular customers to try something new. Offering seasonal specials using local or in-season ingredients is a way of being able to justify charging a premium on these dishes without overwhelming your customers.

6. Tell a Story

Take the personalised approach. Having a smaller, more refined menu allows you to do this. No one wants to read an essay about every single dish on a 50-dish menu. But an 8-dish menu? Let’s hear what inspired you! Italian restaurants are great at this – bringing family values from the dinner table at home to the dinner table in your restaurant will provide your customers with a level of intimacy with your restaurant that will make them feel like they are a part of your story too. 

7. Staff Efficiency & Training

It goes without saying that a smaller menu means less work and a more efficiently run kitchen. It allows your waiting staff to be more knowledgeable about each dish and to offer more information to customers who might be deciding between more than one. 

So have we convinced you why a smaller menu is beneficial to your restaurant yet? We think it’s a no-brainer if you’re looking to simplify your workload, buying process, staff training and make more money in the process.