What's the Right Number of Menu Items for Your Restaurant?

As diners, we've all seen the extremes: a Greek diner with a phone-book-thick menu that jumps from diner-style hash browns to a souvlaki to veal marsala and back again. Or tasting menus at the hottest chef's table in town where you walk in, sit down and let the chef take the wheel.

The right number for your restaurant will likely be found somewhere in between those extremes. Finding your "just right"-sized menu will come from the customer experience you envision and your ability to make it happen.

Finding a balance is the goal. When determining your own magic number of menu items, you must take into consideration several factors, including what your customers want, the skill level of your kitchen staff and what your facility and purveyors can handle.

In fact there are many factors, including food costs, labor costs and storage costs, that can affect real estate expense. The more items listed on the menu the more room you need to store those items. Just the simple task of printing and displaying your menu can become a much more complicated task. And don't forget that front-of-the-house servers have to be more 'menu knowledgeable,' which can lead toward increased turnover.

The Paradox of Choice

Offer too many menu options with too many choices and human nature takes over, with customers finding it difficult to make a choice at all. Technology, Entertainment, Design recently featured speaker Barry Schwartz in a talk titled, "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less."

More than 6 million people tuned into this program in which Schwartz points out that "paradoxically...it produces paralysis, rather than liberation," he says. "With so many options to choose from, people find it difficult to choose at all."

View it for free at www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.

Has this phenomenon affected menus?

Recent data shows that it has. For the first time since such numbers were measured, the menus of the nation's biggest chain restaurants are shrinking. The average number of menu items is down for the first time since market research firm Technomic began tracking the data 10 years ago.

The total number of menu items in the country's top 500 restaurant chains is down 7.1 percent, from 40,658 in 2013 to 37,770 in 2014, according to the latest report. The menu items that get cut the most, according to Technomic, are entrees, which were down almost 9 percent from last year to this year. Appetizers and desserts are also down, each about 8 percent.

The thinking behind this downsizing seems to be that the quality of the food will be better, the service will be faster and the food costs will be lower. As restaurant consumers, particularly so-called millennial diners, become increasingly biased toward farm-to-fork sourcing, or at least fresh, well-executed food, your guests will lose patience with shortcuts and sloppy work.

On the other hand, there are many chefs and restaurateurs who couldn't imagine offering anything less than a bountiful menu that captures the diner's imagination, drawing them in and making them eager to plan a return visit to try the other 20 entrees that also looked pretty darn good.

I know a lot of people operate with small menus. You know it's not going to be a loss, and you can master five or six menu items. But I look at it from the customer's standpoint. I want to give people options.
-- Zack Bruell, Chef & Restaurateur - Cleveland, Ohio

"There's no one perfect number for everyone and there's no one-size-fits-all solution," says Giuseppe Tentori, a Michelin-starred chef who, over the past four years, has developed an ever-changing small plates menu at GT Fish & Oyster in Chicago that includes fresh seafood used in innovative ways on the plate. He says keeping the menu small actually affords him more flexibility.

But not everyone shares that viewpoint.

Going Big On the Other Hand

Some chefs and restaurateurs revel in their giant menus, saying small menus are fine, "for beginners." That quip comes from Zack Bruell, a veteran chef and restaurateur in Cleveland who has opened four restaurants in the past five years alone, all of which have large menus, with no duplicate items. He's convinced it's the best way to keep customers coming back, and if his staff thinks he's crazy, he'll happily tell them they're right, and then proceed to push them to their limit.

"I know a lot of people operate with small menus," Bruell says. "You know it's not going to be a loss, and you can master five or six menu items. But I look at it from the customer's standpoint. I want to give people options."

A party of four or six could have dinner at one of his restaurants, he says, and even if they all ordered something different and sampled from each other's plates, the group wouldn't come close to making a dent in the whole menu.

Bruell's concepts include Parallax, L'Albatros Brasserie & Bar, Table 45, Chinato, Cowell & Hubbard, Dynomite, Kafeteria, and a catering company. Bruell prefers his menus with 20-25 entrees minimum.

Paradoxically, several of the restaurants are in locations where time is of the essence to most patrons. Cowell & Hubbard, located in downtown Cleveland's Public Square, serves theater patrons on their way to a show. Table 45, located inside the InterContinental Hotel, offers upscale dining and also caters private events for the busy Cleveland Clinic community.

In spite of the perpetually ticking clock at these locations, "We've never had people walk because we couldn't get the food out. If the menu is big, I'm assuming that we're executing it correctly," Bruell says. And that happens because, "I push people to their limits."

Bruell says earning the respect of your team is everything and he relies on his team to execute the giant menus to his high standards and vision. That's why he worked the lines at all of his restaurants, alternating days, until the age of 52. He's since crossed over the line and keeps an eye on everything, to show that he's part of the team.

To ensure fast service, big menus must still be built for speed, incorporating the right balance of cooking styles, efficient prep work and cross-utilization. The ingredients should be multitaskers, and when ordering product one must strive to order "enough but not too much" to ensure freshness, something that diners are seeking out more than ever today, Bruell says.

"Parallax is a fish restaurant," he says. "If you want to serve fish, it's got to be fresh. If it's not perfect, we won't serve it, so it goes in the trash. And that's money in the trash. You have to find the balance of what you know will move and what won't."

"Chicken Breast
17,000 Different Ways..."

Jonathan Levine is another chef/owner who is bucking the trend of smaller menus - and proud of it.

"It's kind of a daring thing to do. Keeping it simple is a trend, but I like to do something different and keep everyone intrigued," Levine says. After seven years of a consistently packed restaurant, he says, "We've passed the test of time."

Jonathan's The Rub is a 100-seat (more when the patio's open) Houston restaurant that began as an upscale catering operation, so Levine has experience adapting items and basically giving people what they want.

Levine says that cross-utilization of ingredients is key if you want to pull off a big menu.

"This is where the chicken breast is king," Levine says. "When I first saw a Cheesecake Factory menu I thought, "They have done chicken in 17,000 different ways!"

There is an economy at work in this situation: "The protein is your more expensive item," Levine says. "The way you dress it up and flavor it, with sauce - those ingredients are less expensive."

So when he developed the menu, Levine focused on using the same ingredients and switching between world cuisines and flavor profiles with ease. He kept in mind that most times there are four people working the line.

To call the menu at Jonathan's The Rub "eclectic" would be an understatement. Crack open the dinner menu and you'll find an appetizer section with 15 items, ranging from Santa Fe chicken eggrolls to barbecued shrimp to a bowl of gumbo.

But wait; there's more. Customers then choose from 54 entrees, which are divided between 'New Houston Cuisine' items, like Shrimp Etoufee, Scallop Diane, Hill Country Chicken, Lamb Chops Athena, Oyster & Shrimp and Chipotle Pork Rubbed & Wrapped. There are three more sections: seafood, steaks and chops, and pasta.

The seafood menu veers off into even more choices. Customers can choose a seafood item, a cooking style, and then one of nine sauces in flavors like Santa Cruz, Mandarin, Tampico, Cancun, Vera Cruz and Pontchartrain. The steaks offer their own second tier of choices as well. A ribeye, for example, can get dressed with au poivre, bleu cheese, au jus or a Mexican sauce.

That blank-canvas of proteins, the chicken breast, is the starting point for lots of menu items, from a "South Brooklyn Italian" presentation of Chicken Marsala to Thai Curry Chicken to a fusion plate of Chicken Gruyere with a cilantro-jalapeno sauce crowned with a crab cake.

The diverse, something-for-everyone menu mix is a draw for the date-night crowd, Levine says. "If a four-top walks in, on a double date, maybe one of them really wanted Italian, but the other two didn't, and one really wanted barbecue, they know they can all get what they want here," he says. "A restaurant that can do that has a distinct competitive advantage."

It also keeps his kitchen staff intrigued, Levine says.

They're more engaged in their craft when they're not making the same things again and again. It's more creative," he says. To avoid taxing the four-man line, he will offset the saute station, for example, by offering a few braised dishes like short ribs or osso buco.

Even with a small menu, however, there can be "daily specials" that offer the variety of a larger menu and at the same time keeps the kitchen staff interested and learning. Often the head chef will let the cooks suggest specials and assign them the task of preparing. If it sells well, it could replace an item with lackluster sales.

Traveling Light

The Atlanta airport is the busiest airport in the world. Business travelers and vacationers alike converge every day, in a hurry, often frustrated or homesick and, sure enough, usually hungry.

This is where One Flew South in Terminal E of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport comes in. It's the kind of hip New South cuisine that's been getting noticed by foodies all over the country. It's the kind of new-school airport food (see Rick Bayless' Frontera at Chicago O'Hare or the Vino Volo concept at several airports) that's seen as a destination, not just a subpar part of the journey.

The "Southernational" fare, trendy Prohibition-era cocktails and sparkling fresh sushi at One Flew South actually entices travelers to build in more time between flights just so they can get a taste.

"I have regulars who don't even live in this state," says Duane Nutter, executive chef of One Flew South.

Nutter, an experienced hotel chef, former Iron Chef contestant and part-time stand-up comic, took the helm as executive chef when the One Flew South concept first opened. He quickly saw that running a restaurant in an airport was different from anything he'd ever experienced. Right away, Nutter found that deliveries were going to be an issue.

"Some purveyors don't even want to mess with it, post 9/11," Nutter says. "You have to have an $11 million insurance policy just to drive on the tarmac. I have to help a lot of people get through security."

When he orders something relatively small, like specialty cured meats, he just stuffs it into his backpack, and other times he arranges a "drop-off point" outside the airport. FedEx will do for other items.

Along with the delivery hassles, the kitchen is small and the equipment is limited, with a small grill, two double-deck combi ovens and an 80-cup rice cooker for the sushi bar.

All of these factors, along with Nutter's philosophy that "necessity is the mother of invention," led to the smaller menu at One Flew South.

"I can only cook maybe eight or nine things at one time for a dining room of 80 people, and most of them are getting on the same flight," he says.

When the number of dishes is limited, one must choose wisely in their selection. How did Nutter decide the musthaves of his menu?

"The guests help me decide on the core things on the menu, the things I don't change," he says, relating an incident in which a frequent traveler experienced a bit of a freak-out when he couldn't find his favorite menu item one day at One Flew South.

"The airline had lost this guy's bag, somehow he'd lost one of his shoes, the train was down, so he had just walked from Terminal A to Terminal E. All he could think about was, "I'm gonna have some scallops," Nutter says. "Well, the price of scallops had gotten ridiculous, so I had taken them off the menu. When this guy found out, he cussed out every person in that restaurant. He said, "This is some bull****!"

Other items that Nutter dares not take off the menu include a pork belly and salmon.

I have to leave some things alone, he says, "because travelers do come here for consistency."

The menu evolved as Nutter got a better idea of the demographics- on-the-move that make up Terminal E.

"When we first started, the terminal was handling more daily international flights, but that changed. So our menu changed," he says. "The business traveler going to London isn't looking for the same thing as someone from Wisconsin on their way to the Bahamas."

For example, the jetsetters really enjoyed a modern interpretation of fish and chips - with pistachio aioli, a potato crust on the fish and a fennel-vinegar slaw - but it hadn't been as popular with the new mix of travelers, so off the menu it went.

Sometimes, even with the scaled-down menu, the staff can get stressed out.

"A chef once told me, you're only as good as your weakest cook," he says. "When I write a menu, I picture who may be the weakest person... not naming any names. If they can produce this item, then we can do it."

Is 7 the Magic Number?

Mark Laux, menu design expert and RS&G's MenuMakeover contributor, thinks so. "Seven," he says, without hesitation, elaborating, "Seven appetizers, seven entrees and seven desserts."

His reasoning? "Six doesn't seem like enough choices, but by the time you get to eight, that's too many," he says. Laux is not a fan of big menus, and says they can be "hard to manage and hard to make it fit your brand."

"Restaurant owners hate to be pigeon-holed," he says, acknowledging the lure of the large menu. "But that worry, to me, is ridiculous. How often do we eat pizza? How often do we drink beer? Do we ever get sick of those things?" That said, there may be no magic formula or definitive answer to this question. Certainly the Cheesecake Factory has not suffered from its expansive offerings.

Whatever you are doing in the kitchen, the bottom line, literally, is the bottom line. Are you seeing repeat patronage, robust word-of-mouth promotion and reasonable margin?

For the independent operator who has found his or her niche in the marketplace, you can't afford to neglect the starts of your menu. When developing your menu, you should focus on just a few items that really keep people coming back, Laux says. "Everything else is just background noise."

And then build from there.

WORDS OF WISDOM:

Opening Statements In the Case of Big v. Small

BIG: "If you have the talent, why not?" says Jonathan Levine of Jonathan's The Rub, Houston. "A lot of restaurants have eight items and want to keep it simple. I want to keep it complicated...keep everyone intrigued."

SMALL: "More dishes means higher labor and food costs, and it's also harder to control the quality," says Giuseppe Tentori of GT Fish & Oyster, Chicago. "Having fewer dishes on the menu also means that I can change the menu more often."

Take Advantage of Prepared and Speed-Scratch Items

By Chef Michael Tsonton

The desire to use the freshest ingredients and offer made-from-scratch signature items is laudable and an important factor in the success of independent operators competing with the chains.

Running a kitchen efficiently is also a common goal for all profitable foodservice operations. Chefs and kitchen managers always look for ways to save time by streamlining preparation efforts and thereby controlling labor. Even the smallest ideas can translate into big savings. The issue, however, for most kitchens is maintaining a high level of quality without preparing all components of a dish from scratch.

Part of the answer lies in prepared and speed-scratch items. Food manufacturers are constantly improving products and bringing new creative foodstuffs to the market. The demand is not completely driven by chefs and kitchen managers. Consumers are getting more adventurous so chefs are looking for ways to increase their menus' creativity without adding to their labor.

As menus are becoming increasingly ethnic, the list of pantry and produce ingredients continues to swell, making cross-utilization more important. Soups are the kings of the kitchen castle for helping chefs protect their food cost by cross-utilization of products. In high-volume kitchens, large kettles of chicken stock provide the perfect backdrop for a plethora of flavors. Small-crew kitchens may rely on one of the many well-made soup bases. But be sure to check the label for bases made with meat and vegetables, not salt and MSG (monosodium glutamate). Ready-made broths also provide great flavor without any additional labor, and give recipes consistency.

Getting products from the door to the table with minimal prep work is paramount to controlling labor. Chefs and kitchen managers are using more and more speed-scratch items as they keep pace with the creative energy displayed in today's menus. First-rate speed-scratch items such as dressings, soup bases and even dehydrated mashed potatoes are helping chefs maintain quality without adding to their labor force. But even with the advent of superior prepared foods, the day-to-day prep work is a reality.

Prepared and speed-scratch items don't mean you give up the uniqueness of your menu or concept. For example, a number of chefs use preportioned meats, and create their signature items through sauces and cooking techniques. Less slicing equates into fewer kitchen injuries, as well.