Best Practices
How to Take Your Menu on the Road with To Go Options
Off-premises dining was rapidly expanding way before “BC” (before Covid). In the wake of the pandemic, many full-service concepts now heavily rely on delivery and a well planned to go menu with a solid selection of items as a mainstay – if not the saving grace – of their businesses.
Off-premises restaurant menu development can be a challenging process for some concepts. Not every item that your guests are happy to order at your tables travels well.
Which items should you keep, and which items should you 86? What if your most popular menu item is a hot mess when it arrives at your guest's doorstep? Do you need to add pizza and wings to your off-premises menu to drive sales?
The pandemic was challenging for independent restaurants," says food and beverage (F&B) industry veteran Maeve Webster, president of Menu Matters. Webster's wheelhouse is F&B trend analysis, opportunity assessment, consumer behavior, and operator issues. Here, she offers best practices in restaurant operations for designing a delivery and to go menu that works.
Do not try to emulate another chains’ to go menu. Webster believes independent concepts need to leverage their primary advantage over the chains -- flexibility.
Good food doesn't mean fancy food, good friend doesn't mean fancy friend, good life doesn't mean fancy life."Chains have to make menu changes across a national footprint," says Webster, who encourages operators to focus on solving problems locally as part of their restaurant menu development and "think less about adding to the menu, and more about how it is packaged and promoted." She cautions operators not to make changes to their menu that will erode their "brand strategy." If you are promoting your restaurant as an Irish pub concept, Asian-style potstickers on the menu are likely to be confusing, no matter how good they are and how well they travel.
- Abhijit Naskar
Apply menu engineering but be true to your concept and consider what travels well. Be mindful of what makes you successful as a full-service concept. Take a hard look at what is selling, and what is not. If it is not making you money and supporting your brand strategy, get it off the menu. Restaurant menu development means determining which items are driving sales and profit and which items need to be removed from your menu. Understanding this balance is extremely valuable in the long run. Yet if your popular and profitable eggplant parmesan is a shining star on your full-service menu but arrives at your guests’ doorstep as an unappetizing mess, you might take it off your to go menu.
Rethink how you might be able to present items that do not travel well. For example, regarding the problem with eggplant parmesan, Webster advises you to reconsider "how to make it more portable" rather than remove it from the to go menu entirely.
If the item brought customers to your door pre-pandemic, they probably want it to be on your menu now. Consider the restaurant menu development process you have now and what can be changed. How you built it and how you reconstruct it for future deliveries. Can the sauce container be packaged separately? What can the consumer assemble at home for the best result? "While consumers have lost patience with sub-par quality food,” says Webster, "they are far more open to having to do some assembly."
Keep inventory tight and expand cross-utilization. Many operators understand they do not have to have the same number of items on the take-out and delivery menu as they have on their on-premises dining menu. That does not mean your to go menu has to be skimpy. Be creative with items that travel well and are profitable. For example, if a certain handheld item is selling well, then perhaps you might try to repurpose the ingredients into a bowl offering.
Need help developing a killer to go menu for your concept? Listen to our webinar Food Delivery: How Independent Restaurants Are Responding to this Rapidly Growing Trend for tips. Check out this delivery menu success story for even more off-premise inspiration.
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