Author: Keely Hungate

When diners first step into a restaurant, there’s a lot to take in: the decor, the layout, the guests and employees, the overall “vibe.”

But for 99.9 percent of restaurants, it’s the menu that really matters to your guests — and to the success of your business. Your menu doesn’t have to be fancy or even unique: Whether you’re offering quick-service burgers or fine dining at its finest, strategically planning out your menu is a critical factor when it comes to restaurant profitability. 

And even if your menu was thoughtfully planned: it’s wise to constantly evaluate what you’re offering, how it’s performing, and why it belongs there. Here’s what to think about when you’re planning (or revamping) your restaurant menu.

Menu planning overview

Menu planning starts with your restaurant concept. The best menus have a sense of creativity that feels true to a restaurant’s brand, whether that’s an homage to a childhood favorite dish or a masterpiece that took months and months of tinkering with flavors to create.

Planning your menu requires three steps:

• List out all of your menu items, including descriptions of each item.
• Categorize your items into different areas, like appetizers, entrees, or seafood.
• Set prices for each item.

Sounds easy, right? Not so much.

Why is menu planning important?

The menu planning process is actually one of the most complex you’ll go through as a restaurant business, because it combines business analysis (profit margins and cost/benefit analysis) with creativity (what inspires you) and design (what it looks like on paper or on your website). That’s a lot!

But it’s one of the most important processes your restaurant undergoes, especially if you rotate your menus with the seasons and suppliers. Menu planning, done right, evokes a feeling, harnesses your back-of-house skills and creativity, and flows together so that every diner leaves your restaurant happy and satisfied — and you turn a profit.

5 factors to consider when planning a menu

As you build out your menu, keep in mind:

• Length. Your menu should probably be smaller than you think! Unless you’re the Cheesecake Factory — known for their 21-page, 250-item coffee table-sized menu — you’ll want to come up with a short list of items that truly represent the best of what your kitchen has to offer. In fact, small menus are back in style — not just for fancy bistros but for well-known spots like Applebee’s, Red Robin, and iHOP, which have all downsized their menus in the last year.
• Quality. Every kitchen has strengths and weaknesses. Acknowledge where your staff is at and what they do well…and what doesn’t always hit the mark. If timing is an issue for a particular dish, cut it. If your customers complain about your breadsticks, cut them. Focus on what you do spectacularly well, and that’s what you’ll become known for.
• Costs. Prices have gone up, up, up this past year for everything from kale to cardboard boxes, shrinking already slim profit margins. Do the math for each menu item and cut the ones that don’t help you break even.
• Delivery. With takeout and delivery a core part of any restaurant model today, consider how each menu item handles transit time. Maybe now isn’t the time to debut too many fried or saucy items that don’t hold up well. Consider how you’ll package each item, too.
• Names and descriptions. You don’t order a double cheeseburger at McDonald’s — you order a Big Mac. While you don’t have to trademark every item you make, think about common mouthwatering descriptors to use for your menu items, like crispy, crunchy, fresh, hearty, smoky, or juicy. Keep your descriptions brief and specific so customers know exactly what they’re going to get when they order it.

How to develop a more profitable restaurant menu

The secret to a more profitable menu isn’t just about the food.

It’s about psychology. The average diner spends only 109 seconds looking at your menu. That mean they’re probably not reading it like a book; they’re skimming and scanning — often distracted by fellow guests, or servers coming and going — so you’ve got a short amount of time  to make an impact. Whether you’re using a physical menu or putting it all online using QR codes, the way you design and lay out the menu matters just as much as what’s on it. 

Here are a few steps to follow for a more profitable menu:

1. As you evaluate your menu item ideas, create a grid with profitability on one axis and popularity on the other. Ideally, you want to maximize both profitability and popularity (the top right quadrant), as that’s where your big money-makers are that your customers love. Sort each item into the different quadrants, so you can identify your hits…and your duds. This is sometimes called menu engineering.
2. Once you can see everything on one chart, you can start to take action. Cut anything that’s low in popularity and low in profitability, and then evaluate cost-saving opportunities for anything that’s popular but not very profitable. Your customers obviously love ordering that item, but can you make an ingredient swap that won’t impact the quality, but may help your margins? For anything that’s profitable but unpopular, consider a social media promotion, asking servers to talk it up at tables, or running a discount. Maybe your customers don’t know about it — or maybe your prices are a little too high.
3. Think about how you’re putting your menu together to maximize your high profitability items. In vertically arranged menus, for example, the eye tends to gravitate toward the first and last items in a list, so any dishes in those spots will be big sellers. Another sweet spot? The upper right corner.
4. Use visual cues like boxes, graphics, or typography to highlight big-ticket items and maximize space for your layout.
5. As you work on your menu planning, test your menu designs and items and don’t discount customer feedback. If you have customers clamoring for a pastrami sandwich (or you’re known to have that as a “secret” item), offer it!
6. Similarly, if you receive negative feedback on a specific menu item after more than one service, then you know you need to revisit it. Test out different menu designs, ask your customers what they think, and have fun with it — your menu is what makes you stand out!

Optimize your restaurant operations with digital tip payments

If you’re revamping your menu, it might be a good time to revamp your tip payment process, too. Digital tip payments cut your labor costs, eliminate bank runs, and reduce the risk of theft and error — all while helping you hire (and retain) more workers. See Kickfin’s digital tip payment platform in action! 

Monte Silva has spent 40 years in hospitality.

He’s done every job that exists in this industry: dishwasher, prep cook, line cook, busser, server, bartender, DJ, bouncer. But the majority of his career has revolved around restaurant management and operations.

He’s been a GM for Wolfgang Puck, and he’s also managed a $18.5 million revenue restaurant, where he oversaw a team of 13 salaried people and over 100 employees.

To say Monte is qualified to coach other restaurateurs is an understatement. And the ever-elusive, oft-forgotten concept of work-life balance is one of his favorite areas to focus on. Here’s what Monte has to say about living your life while successfully scaling your restaurant. (Yes, it’s possible.)

What’s your restaurant coaching philosophy?

It’s about mindset and habits. It takes 67 days to develop and keep new habits. But we tend to abandon behaviors before they become habits. And that’s the crux of why I started doing 90-day coaching.

The people who hire me are owners, often owner-couples. They run a restaurant, usually one to three locations. Maybe they’ve got kids. And ultimately they want to know: how do we grow our business and make sure we’re successful without having to be “in it” every day?

What does life look like for the typical restaurant owner “couple?”

Well, it’s busy. If they’ve got kids, there’s lots of daycare, after-school programs. Figuring out who’s picking up the kids and a million other logistics. Who’s handling chores and repairs and general maintenance at their house. Who’s going to be at the restaurant when.

It’s really, really tough for a married couple. They’re at the top of the line. It falls on them to share challenges with each other — they don’t want to take worries and complaints down to employees. They act like business associates, and a lot of times, they don’t know how to create a boundary between that relationship and their personal one.

It’s not unusual for a restaurant franchisee to start small. While investing in a franchise can be a smart move, it isn’t risk-free, and it generally requires a hefty investment of time and capital. Jumping straight into multi-unit franchise ownership doesn’t make sense for everyone, especially if you’re new to the restaurant franchising game.

Multi-unit franchising can be a fast-track to growth and success, but it comes with a few “ifs” — if you’ve got the operating experience; if you’re working with an established, proven brand; if you’ve got the resources to do it right. And keep in mind: Transitioning from one unit to two (or three, or 10) typically requires big changes to your management team and staff, your operations and processes, and your role as the franchise owner.

If you’re thinking about amplifying your success through multi-unit franchising, here’s everything you need to know.

What is a multi-unit franchise?

A multi-unit franchise model allows franchisees to operate more than one restaurant unit in a given territory.

A franchisee may own the right to operate multiple units of the same brand or operate restaurants for several different franchisors. Guillermo Perales, CEO of Dallas-based Sun Holdings, operates more than 1,000 stores, including 293 Burger Kings, 150 Popeyes, 94 Arby’s, and 18 Krispy Kremes.

Multi-unit doesn’t necessarily mean thousands of restaurants like Perales. Today, 54% of franchises are multi-unit operations, compared to single-unit owners (46%). Breaking that down further, 30% own between two restaurants and 30. Only 5.3% of owners make it past the 100-unit mark.

As long as a franchisee is running more than one store, they qualify as a multi-unit franchisee.

How does a multi-unit franchise work?

Multi-unit franchises scale up operations from one restaurant to two (or many). Typically, this means a multi-unit franchise owner steps into a business development or strategic role rather than a hands-on manager of each restaurant unit.

This also means the multi-unit franchise owner is responsible for developing and running each unit themselves. While they may visit each location to meet with staff or check on operations, more likely they hire an experienced management team to run each location or several locations at a time.

What are the benefits of being a multi-unit franchisee?

Multi-unit franchises exploded in popularity in recent years for restaurant owners — from 2010 to 2018, businesses saw a 23% increase in entry-level multi-unit operators. It’s no surprise why, once you consider the benefits:

• More income. More locations mean access to more revenue streams, especially when expanding into multiple brands.
• Lower operating costs. The more locations you open, the more you can leverage economies of scale, sharing back-end staff like accounting, marketing, and operations across multiple locations and decreasing your overhead.
• Diversified income. Separate locations in a given territory allows you to diversify your income streams and spread risk across multiple investments. If there’s construction in front of one location that decreases traffic, for example, your other units can pick up the slack.
• Relationship-building: Without franchisees, major restaurant chains wouldn’t function. The more locations you open, the stronger relationship you build with a brand — so everyone wins the more profitable you are.

What is a multi-unit franchise agreement?

Franchisees expand in two different ways: starting with one unit and opening more franchise locations over time or signing a multi-unit franchise agreement at the outset. The multi-unit franchise agreement details the rights and obligations of each party (in this case, the franchisor and the franchisee.)

When you sign a multi-unit franchise agreement, you determine:

• How you will open additional units. Are you taking over existing locations or building new ones in your territory, and if so, where? This is part of your area development agreement, which determines guidelines for choosing new sites and franchisor approval.
• The timeline for opening additional units. Most multi-unit franchise agreements outline a prescribed schedule for opening subsequent units, often on an annual basis. How long will you be managing these units, and at which points will you open new ones?
• Your territory. Franchisors grant a specific geographic area for your business to operate in. Some grant more than one territory, if that’s what you’re looking for, but most franchisees operate in one area at a time.
  Intellectual property. This includes training, menus, branding colors, guidelines for marketing and other materials, and what rights franchisees have to make changes. In many QSR agreements, the franchisor retains all rights to recipes and menu items offered and changes are not allowed.
• Profit, fees, and insurance: The revenue-sharing model you agree to, what fees the franchisee must pay each year to the franchisor for the right to operate, pricing for menu items, and of course, insurance and other costs of operating a business in partnership together.

Franchisors legally have to give you 14 days to review any multi-unit franchise agreement, so read through it carefully with your legal team before making a commitment.

Types of multi-unit franchise agreements

There are two kinds of multi-unit franchise agreements:

• Area development agreements: The more common of the two, this gives franchisees the right to open a certain number of franchise units in your territory over time
• Area representative agreements: This creates a sub-franchisor relationship, which allows the franchisee to open and operate locations but also sell those franchises to others within that territory.

With multi-unit franchises, it’s less about the day-to-day restaurant operations and more about your overall business strategy. As you consider how you plan to expand your restaurant business, think about how many units you want to acquire, which brands you want to partner with, and what types of agreements make the most sense for you.

Opening a multi-unit franchise?

Whether you have one unit or 50, restaurant franchisees can use instant tip payment technology to minimize the risk, hassle, and hidden costs of paying out cash tips. If you’re not already using Kickfin, get in touch with us today for a free demo!

Meet Ken and Shane of Fabio Viviani Hospitality.

You’ve probably heard of Fabio Viviani — Top Chef winner, New York Times bestseller, restaurateur extraordinaire (oh, and Kickfin customer!). Since 2005, Fabio has launched dozens restaurants across the country through Fabio Viviani Hospitality.

FVH owes a good deal of its success to Ken McGarrie and Shane Farzad. Ken, who founded the consulting firm Korgen Hospitality, has launched dozens of restaurants — both alongside Fabio and on his own — and Shane serves as Head of Operations for FVH.

When it comes to restaurant management, Ken and Shane are about as knowledgeable as you can get. They’re experts on how to be a great manager, and how to manage a manager. (Ken actually wrote a whole book on it.) Whether you employ managers, or you’re a manager yourself — read on for actionable tips and insights you can put into practice right now.

OK, we all know recruiting is a complete nightmare these days — but hiring the wrong manager can be worse than having no manager at all. What are some of the mistakes that employers make when bringing on new managers or GMs?

Ken: One of the things that often gets overlooked is that managing a new venue is much different than stepping into a manager role at an existing venue. For a restaurant that’s about to launch, or that’s recently launched, you can expect the first six months to be complete chaos. You have to be willing to handle whatever gets thrown at you and to get creative.

Some people do really well in that environment. But if you’re the type of person who wants to have mis in place — you need all of the kinks worked out, operations down to a science — you’re probably not going to make a great opening staff member.

Shane: There’s also this temptation to pull your star server and turn them into a manager. But those are two entirely different roles.

Which isn’t to say a server can’t be an amazing manager. A lot of managers started out as servers (or hosts, bussers, etc.) and they do a great job. But it takes a different skill set, so your experience as a server isn’t always going to translate.

So part of it’s finding the right fit — but isn’t training just as important?

Shane: For sure. One restaurant group I was with gave me a solid four weeks of training. I spent a week in the corporate office, a week in the flagship restaurant…they even put me in the kitchen for a week. The meals that guests were ordering — I had cooked those myself. I understood everything that went into every process.

Of course, that kind of program is hard to execute, and it’s expensive. It’s just not feasible for every restaurant. What’s important to keep in mind is that in order to be effective, training doesn’t have to be intense. It just has to be focused.

How should the approach to training managers differ from training hourly workers? Is there some overlap?

Ken: Restaurants do a much better job of hiring and training hourly staff than management, by far. At the hourly level, it’s a lot more straightforward. With managers, it’s like: Hey, surprise! You find yourself counting drawers, running reports, tipping out. No one taught you how to manage and coach staff. A month ago you were a bartender — now you have all these brand-new manager responsibilities.

Shane: You can’t just assume that managers know how to do it all; you’ve got to take the time to align on the key responsibilities, train them up on processes, and communicate frequently.

And in addition to regular training, you can incorporate wine training, do field trips, hold weekly education and menu tastings that keep people engaged and connected — both managers and hourly workers.

Why do you think turnover is so high for restaurant managers?

Ken: We put them to the grind. We add on more paperwork than necessary. We ask for things constantly that take them off the floor. They’re running reports at 2 a.m. It’s psychological warfare — and especially with the lack of staff, they’re having to fill in gaps everywhere.

What happens is that managers who are stuck in this grind will find other restaurants with better systems, more automation, easier solutions. Or they’ll just completely burn our and move away from the industry altogether.

Shane: We’ve seen much more of a revolving door of the management team especially during Covid. They had all this downtime, and now they’re coming back to this job that just wears them down. They really feel it now. So they’re questioning their whole career after they had this luxury of time and flexibility.

Ken: It’s a bummer because these people move into management actually looking for longevity. If we, as owners and operators, aren’t giving them a vision for how they can better themselves and move up, then they’re just going to leave.

And at the same time, managers also need to be advocating for themselves.

Talk a little bit more about that. What’s your best piece of advice for managers who want to succeed but are feeling the burn out?

Ken: Figure out why you did it. You probably moved into a job where you’re making half as much money for twice as many hours — so be honest with yourself. What do you want out of it? Do you want to be a GM? Do you want to run your own restaurant? Do you want to move into other leadership roles?

Being a manager is essentially a bootcamp. It’s skill development, and it’s a test of your capabilities. You probably don’t want to be there forever — the idea is that you will ultimately move on to something else. What is that for you?

How can managers “move up” quickly, if that’s their end game?

Ken: If you’re waiting for someone to recognize your talent and move you up, it’s never going to happen. Your boss doesn’t have the bandwidth or the time to focus on that. So a big chapter in the book I wrote is about being your own PR agent. It’s really the only way it’s going to happen.

Look for ways to develop yourself professionally. Learn new skills. Be an entirely different kind of manager, and then lobby for the role you want. Be vocal about it. Flood their inbox. Find ways to get on their radar over and over again.

That really goes for anyone on a restaurant team. Case in point: We had a busser who was so exceptional. He was the perfect busser. And to be honest, we didn’t need or want to move him because he was so great in that particular position. But he really wanted to be a server. If he hadn’t been lobbying for himself, we never would have made that change. Now he’s a great server, and he’s happy as hell.

Bottom line: Be your own advocate. It may not come naturally at first, but if you want to succeed in this industry and really turn it into a career, that’s what you’ve got to do.

Want more manager insights? Check out Ken’s book, The Surprise Restaurant Manager, for easy-to-execute strategies and real-life examples that will lead up your management game!

If you don’t know Fred LeFranc, you should.

A true restaurant industry veteran, Fred has spent his entire career in hospitality. He’s earned a reputation as a passionate advocate, a change agent, and a trusted advisor to countless executive leadership teams and CEOs across the country.

Fred co-founded Results Thru Strategy in 2006 and currently serves as managing partner. RTS works with clients to identify their competitive edge, evaluate their operations, and develop strategies that achieve consistent, meaningful growth. Recently, Fred also became CEO of Engleman’s Bakery, a wholesale bakery operation based in Atlanta.

He and his colleague Briana Brenson, Chaos Coordinator at RTS, sat down with Kickfin to discuss the current state of the supply chain — an ongoing Covid-era problem with no end in sight. Here’s their take on the situation and some tactical advice for restaurants struggling with supply chain headaches.

How did we arrive at this massive supply chain disruption?

As we all know, when Covid first hit, everything shut down. Production slowed or even ceased for some goods. (Remember the toilet paper shortage?)

But pretty soon, we started seeing this surge in demand when everything began to reopen. The supply chain simply couldn’t keep up — and it still can’t.

It’s happening across every industry. Things overseas are a mess. We’ve got gigantic ships, full of containers, just waiting offshore to be unloaded. Part of the problem is that even when there are people to work (the longshoremen are there) these two-week quarantines are sidelining a lot of the manpower.

Food and beverage has been hit hard. It’s having a huge impact on restaurants.  Even major players like Chipotle and Starbucks are saying they can’t get their product.

What are you telling RTS clients who are in the thick of this mess?

It’s a nightmare. Too much business, plus supply chain problems and a worker shortage — it’s truly a perfect storm.

Fortunately, it’s not going to last forever. And to help them make it through the storm, we’ve been repeating this mantra to restaurants: “Less is more. More with less.”

Unpack that for us. What do you mean by “less is more?”

Less is more is about adjusting the menu to items that have appeal, profit and ease of production.

Menu creep always happens. Menus get bloated because we’re afraid to take anything off. Even the slowest selling item is someone’s favorite. People complain when menus change.

But if you’re intelligent about it, less really is more. Moving toward a smaller menu is going to allow you to be more efficient.

As an example: most restaurants have four stations. During a pandemic with a supply chain problem and a worker shortage, maybe try to revamp your menu so that you can move to three or even two stations.

The mono-concepts that focus on one product are already benefiting from this. Think about it — you don’t get a chicken wing at In-N-Out. Those concepts make even more sense now. As much as you can focus on a single product or concept, that’s going to help you reduce variables on the supply chain side, and it’s going to help you make it through this tough period of time.