Restaurant menu design is crucial for owning or running a food business. Designing an eye-catching or beautiful menu can help you draw attention to particular menu items and encourage customers to spend more during a food-service period.
From fast-food restaurants to coffee shops, food establishments of all kinds need effective menus. But knowing how to get started with restaurant menu design can take time and effort. You need to craft a restaurant or cafe menu that shows off your food and beverage offerings without overwhelming the customer.
So, if you’re a restaurateur and need some restaurant menu design advice, you’ve come to the right place. This article will tell you everything you need to know — from possible formats to design tips.
There are various types of restaurant menus that you may need to create for your small business.
All restaurants need some kind of food menu. Some business owners choose to include beverages on the same menu, while others prefer to set up a separate bar menu or hot drink menu. If you offer a carry-out service, it’s also worth designing a specific take-out menu that you can hand out to customers on the go.
You can choose various formats for your menus depending on your needs:
Paper menus: These are an excellent choice for restaurants whose menu changes regularly. If you run a fine-dining restaurant with a menu that changes daily or weekly, printing off a simple paper menu each morning could be the best option. It’s easy to put together and cheap to produce.
Menu boards: These are best for restaurants whose menu always stays the same, such as fast-food or quick-service restaurants (QSRs). You can include food photos to let customers see exactly what they’re ordering without reading a long menu. This can help you keep service quick and process more orders in a service run.
Menu booklets: If your menu rarely changes but you want to curate a higher-end experience for your customers, a laminated menu booklet is a good choice. Design a beautiful menu that you give to customers time and again.
Online menus: Uploading an online menu is a good idea for most restaurants as it lets customers know what to expect before they dine, and you can share them on social media to promote new menu items. You can also incorporate a digital menu into your restaurant by giving customers QR codes to scan.
Self-service menus: Self-ordering kiosks in QSRs need to have a built-in menu to let customers place their orders. Self-service apps like KioskBuddy let you customize your restaurant menu. You can match the self-service display to your restaurant’s color scheme or upload food photos to give customers an idea of each menu item.
Think about the best menu for your restaurant’s atmosphere and choose the ones that work well with your ordering system and dining experience.
There are two main methods to choose from regarding restaurant menu design. You can use a restaurant menu template or design a menu from scratch.
Following a restaurant menu template is the fastest and most straightforward way to create your restaurant menu. You can simply use an online menu maker, where you’ll find many food menu templates to fill in with your own food and beverage offerings.
If you’d prefer a unique menu designed specifically for your restaurant, you can create your own or work with a graphic designer. They can design templates for you that you can fill in with your menu items and update whenever you make changes to the food or drinks on offer. That way, you won’t have to start from scratch every time you need to draft a new menu.
Whether you design your own menu, work with a graphic designer, or use a menu template you find online, you’ll want to make sure it looks beautiful and makes the food as tempting as possible. Here are five tips to help you achieve that.
It can be tempting to fill every inch of your menu with copy or images to show off your food, but this can make your menu look cluttered and unprofessional. Including plenty of white space (or blank space — it doesn’t necessarily have to be white!) will help you create a sleek presentation that lets customers read your menu items clearly.
If you want to include more menu items but don’t want to overfill the space, consider increasing the physical menu size rather than reducing the font size or adding an extra row.
Bring your restaurant branding into your menu to create cohesion. You can match the menu color scheme with your restaurant design and include your logo in the top right or left corner.
You should also choose a font that matches or complements the typography used in your logo and any wall art around your restaurant.
If your menu has several different sections (e.g., one for appetizers, one for entrees, one for sides, one for sauces, etc.), it’s a good idea to choose a restaurant menu design with boxed sections to highlight these aspects.
A simple list structure might be less complicated for a novice designer but less visually appealing for your diners. The best menu layouts use boxes and columns to direct customers’ attention to particular menu areas — and don’t forget to include headings to name each menu subsection.
Research suggests that consumers spend more in restaurants when dollar signs aren’t included on the menu — so listing the price as 4.99 instead of $4.99. The presence of a dollar sign (or another currency symbol) subconsciously reminds customers that they are spending money. Omitting it means they are more likely to see the number as an abstract figure, which can make them spend more.
By making this simple change, you could encourage your customers to spend more every time they come in to eat.
The best menus include engaging dish names and descriptions that show diners what to expect. Use adjectives to describe the flavor and texture of food or the method it’s been cooked. Here’s a list of words that can help your food items sound delicious:
Spicy
Tangy
Chargrilled
Crisp
Buttery
Fried
Sweet
Lemony
Fresh
Fragrant
Small changes like this can significantly affect how enticing your food sounds, which could also increase the number of orders you receive.
Restaurant menu design can be tricky if you’re not used to graphic design or restaurant branding, but getting your menu right means you can increase customer sales and improve the overall dining experience in your restaurant.
Self-service kiosks like KioskBuddy provide an easy way to show customers your menu. Upload the menu items to the app and let customers view them at their own pace. They can click through items to add them to their order before paying for them.
KioskBuddy even lets you customize the appearance of your digital menu so that you can bring elements of your branding into the user interface.
Sign up for KioskBuddy today and get a 30-day free trial.