AAAfoodhandler

Food safety regulations: Tips & Tricks for Building a Profitable Restaurant Menu

A restaurant’s menu is more than just a list of food items—it’s one of the most critical sales tools. Studies show that the average customer spends only 109 seconds glancing at a menu before deciding what to order. That’s less than two minutes for your menu to make an impact! During this brief moment, customers scan and compare prices and read descriptions.

To make the most of those 109 seconds, crafting a concise, well-organized, and profit-driven menu is essential. Every dish and drink should not only delight your guests but also contribute to your restaurant’s bottom line. This is where menu engineering comes into play—a strategic approach to designing menus that boost profitability while guiding customer choices

In this blog, we’ll dive into practical tips and tricks for building a profitable menu that works for both sit-down dining and delivery, all while keeping your customers’ experience at the forefront.

What is Menu Engineering?

Menu engineering is a strategic process used to evaluate and optimize a restaurant’s menu by analyzing food costs, sales data, and customer preferences. The goal is to categorize menu items based on their profitability and popularity, guiding restaurant owners to make informed decisions about which items to feature, reprice, or remove. This involves analyzing each dish’s food cost per serving, contribution margin, and sales volume, creating a balance between profit and customer satisfaction.

What’s the Purpose of Menu Engineering?

The main goal of menu engineering is to maximize profitability by using data to optimize the menu. Restaurateurs can strategically highlight high-margin and popular dishes, adjust pricing, and streamline offerings to influence customer decisions. With a firm grasp on food costs and customer behavior, menu engineering can boost revenue while improving the dining experience.

What are the Benefits of Menu Engineering?

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Maximize Profitability

Menu engineering identifies high-margin items and promotes them through strategic placement and compelling descriptions. This increases the likelihood that customers will choose profitable dishes, maximizing revenue per transaction.

Cost Management

By understanding the cost of each dish, restaurants can pinpoint items with low profit margins and adjust pricing or recipes to improve profitability. This helps maintain a healthy gross profit margin even as food costs fluctuate.

Improved Customer Experience

Streamlining the menu helps customers make quicker, more satisfying decisions. By showcasing popular and well-liked dishes, restaurants can reduce menu confusion and increase customer satisfaction.

Reduction of Food Waste

With a refined menu, restaurants can manage ingredients more efficiently, reducing the amount of unsold food. This not only cuts waste but also lowers food costs.

Innovation

Menu engineering encourages regular updates to the menu based on performance data, which leads to more opportunities for experimentation. Restaurants can introduce seasonal or innovative dishes while keeping their offerings fresh and exciting.

Drawbacks to Menu Engineering

Although menu engineering has many advantages, it’s not without challenges. Overemphasizing profitability can lead to reduced menu variety or compromise on quality, which could hurt customer satisfaction. Additionally, frequent menu changes may confuse regular diners. Striking the right balance between profitability and variety while maintaining customer trust is essential.

How to Engineer a Menu and Maximize Profits

Here’s a step-by-step guide to engineering a menu effectively:

    1. Choose a Time Period: Decide on the time frame for your analysis. Seasonal menus should align with seasonal changes, while more stable menus can be reviewed less frequently. Regular updates are essential to keep pace with fluctuating food costs.
  1. Cost Your Menu: Calculate food cost per serving and contribution margin for each menu item. Use these formulas:
  • Food Cost per Serving: Total cost of ingredients per serving.
  • Contribution Margin: Sales price – Food cost per serving.
  1. For instance, if a hamburger costs $3.65 to make and sells for $14.40, its contribution margin is $10.75.
  1. Categorize Menu Items Based on Profit and Popularity: Use a menu matrix to categorize items into:
  • Plowhorses: Popular but low-profit items. Improve profitability by adjusting prices or portion sizes.
  • Stars: High-profit and high-popularity items. Promote and feature prominently.
  • Puzzles: High-profit but low-popularity items. Experiment with promotions or adjustments to increase appeal.
  • Duds: Low-profit and low-popularity items. Consider removing or reworking them.
  1. Redesign Your Menu: Use the insights from your menu matrix to craft a new menu layout. Incorporate both quantitative data and qualitative feedback from staff and customers to make informed decisions.

What is Menu Psychology?

Menu psychology studies how customers interact with menus and how menu design can guide their choices. Elements such as layout, colors, pricing, and even the way items are described can influence a customer’s decision to order specific dishes, potentially increasing sales of high-profit items.

Why Should Restaurants Leverage Menu Psychology?

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Choose the Ideal Menu Configuration

Menu layout plays a crucial role in guiding customer choices. A two-panel menu is often the most effective, giving customers a sense of choice without overwhelming them. For larger menus, a three-panel design may be necessary, but simplicity often leads to better results.

Write Awesome Menu Descriptions

A well-written description can increase sales by up to 27%. Focus on vivid language, highlighting the origin, preparation, and texture of dishes without being verbose. A compelling story behind each dish enhances its appeal.

Emphasize Your Stars and Puzzles

Use eye magnets—like bold fonts, icons, or splashes of color—sparingly to spotlight your most profitable menu items. Overuse can dilute the impact, but a single graphic element per page can boost sales by up to 30%. Keep it simple to make sure your stars and puzzles shine.

Consider Eye Movement Patterns

Customers tend to focus on specific areas of a menu. Placing high-profit items in those key areas, such as the top right corner, can drive higher sales.

Beware of the Burden of Choice

Offering too many options can overwhelm customers. Keep your menu concise, and consider splitting large menus by meal type or daypart (breakfast, lunch, dinner) to streamline decision-making.

Train Your Staff

Train your staff to guide customers toward ordering high-profit items by making suggestions and highlighting daily specials. Servers are often the final influence on customer choices, so training them on your menu engineering goals is essential.

Measure Your New Menu’s Impact

After a month of your new menu being live, dive into your sales data to gauge its impact. Check if sales of high-margin items like puzzles and stars increased and if profits improved. Evaluate if food costs decreased and identify any trends. Based on these insights, adjust and refine your menu further. Remember, menu optimization is an ongoing process—track results meticulously to understand what resonates with your customers and continue evolving for better performance.

The Science Behind a Profitable Menu

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Menu engineering is both an art and a science. By selecting a timeframe, calculating costs, categorizing dishes, redesigning the layout, and measuring impact, you can create a menu that not only satisfies customers but also boosts profitability. 

With over 35 years of experience in food handling, safety, and management, AAA Food Handler is dedicated to supporting restaurants in creating successful, profitable menus. For expert advice and cutting-edge solutions, reach out to us and let’s transform your menu into a revenue-generating machine.

Ready to optimize your menu? Contact us at AAA Food Handler for expert guidance and solutions tailored to your restaurant’s needs.

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Interesante

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Es muy interesante, aprendí y reforcé mucho conocimiento

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No Title

March 11, 2025

Fue muy instructivo el curso

Ilianny D.

Nuevos e interesantes conocimientos

March 11, 2025

es increible descubrir nuevas cosas en un entrenamiento tan corto, que no solo te ayudan a nivel de negocio si no tambien en tu hogar. Una bonita experiencia y no es aburrido, en lo personal me parecio muy importante y provechoso.

Patricia U.

Good

March 11, 2025

It was interesting, entertaining and understandable.

Diana

Doy las 5 estrenas por su ayuda

March 10, 2025

Fue algo educativo para la iguiene del Trabago Laboral y de mucha ayuda

Martin G.

bueno

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fue un examen bueno

marcelino E.

importante Conover sobre los patogenos, asi evitamos una epidemia

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Creo que todos deberiamos saber Como almacenar los Alimentos en casa tambien

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very nice

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very nice

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angela C.

Great experience

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Easy training

arandy C.

Is good

March 8, 2025

Is Good in

Ricardo C.

Me gusto saber cómo manipular correctamente la comida y me gustaría saber más,,,,,

March 8, 2025

Es interesante y nesesario saber correctamente esta información sobre la temperatura de la comida antes y después de cocinarla y también cómo es que nosotros mismos la podemos contaminar

Estoy feliz de aver tomando este curso,,

Irma R.

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Simply crap…. Is like a machine made it and no human revised it lol navigation is not intuitive and at times there is two dialogues happening at the same time….. way to waste my time…. At least I’m on the clock -.-

Michel

MUY ENTRETENIDO

March 7, 2025

Usualmente el leer me abruma demasiado y el pensar que tengo que memorizar me produce estrés pero este curso fue toda una maravilla

Oscar F.

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Claudia M.

No Title

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Es importante tomar clases de diferentes formas de cómo prevenir enfermedades.

Ya que logramos reducir enfermedades

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Exam

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Good training

Daniela

Good

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Good training

Daniela

No Title

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Judith H.

refreshing

March 6, 2025

thanks

Julia P.
Group 5702
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(20,869 reviews)
4.9
(20,869 reviews)

Food Handler Reviews

4.9

star (2)
20,869 reviews
4.9
4.9 out of 5 stars (based on 20,869 reviews)
Excellent92%
Very good6%
Average2%
Poor0%
Terrible0%

Interesante

March 11, 2025

Es muy interesante, aprendí y reforcé mucho conocimiento

Katherine L.

No Title

March 11, 2025

Fue muy instructivo el curso

Ilianny D.

Nuevos e interesantes conocimientos

March 11, 2025

es increible descubrir nuevas cosas en un entrenamiento tan corto, que no solo te ayudan a nivel de negocio si no tambien en tu hogar. Una bonita experiencia y no es aburrido, en lo personal me parecio muy importante y provechoso.

Patricia U.

Good

March 11, 2025

It was interesting, entertaining and understandable.

Diana

Doy las 5 estrenas por su ayuda

March 10, 2025

Fue algo educativo para la iguiene del Trabago Laboral y de mucha ayuda

Martin G.

bueno

March 10, 2025

fue un examen bueno

marcelino E.

importante Conover sobre los patogenos, asi evitamos una epidemia

March 9, 2025

Creo que todos deberiamos saber Como almacenar los Alimentos en casa tambien

Yohali G.

very nice

March 8, 2025

angela C.

very nice

March 8, 2025

angela C.

Great experience

March 8, 2025

Easy training

arandy C.

Is good

March 8, 2025

Is Good in

Ricardo C.

Me gusto saber cómo manipular correctamente la comida y me gustaría saber más,,,,,

March 8, 2025

Es interesante y nesesario saber correctamente esta información sobre la temperatura de la comida antes y después de cocinarla y también cómo es que nosotros mismos la podemos contaminar

Estoy feliz de aver tomando este curso,,

Irma R.

Basura

March 7, 2025

Simply crap…. Is like a machine made it and no human revised it lol navigation is not intuitive and at times there is two dialogues happening at the same time….. way to waste my time…. At least I’m on the clock -.-

Michel

MUY ENTRETENIDO

March 7, 2025

Usualmente el leer me abruma demasiado y el pensar que tengo que memorizar me produce estrés pero este curso fue toda una maravilla

Oscar F.

No Title

March 6, 2025

Claudia M.

No Title

March 6, 2025

Es importante tomar clases de diferentes formas de cómo prevenir enfermedades.

Ya que logramos reducir enfermedades

Alicia

Exam

March 6, 2025

Good training

Daniela

Good

March 6, 2025

Good training

Daniela

No Title

March 6, 2025

Judith H.

refreshing

March 6, 2025

thanks

Julia P.
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Very informative!

March 11, 2025

I love that you are able to go back and rewatch the videos that you want to rewatch. They give great example of how things work and actually make it easy to follow along.

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The course is very easy to follow, informative and provided all the necessary information required to achieve success.

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Very detail and to the point

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been in the food industry for more than 12 years but picked up lot of new and updated information

from the course.

Rishi

Easy

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Quick easy and to the point

Gaby

Food manager training course

March 11, 2025

Great visuals/audio to represent and teach individuals how to practice safe managerial roles in food business’

Devynn

Great training!

March 10, 2025

I enjoyed this training and found it very easy to navigate!

Meghan

Excellent learning material

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Paul

Great course

March 10, 2025

Informative. I believe the time temperature controls, food borne illness and sanitation are the most important.

Andrew J.

Summery

March 10, 2025

It was a qiuick and easy course. Was able to understand it with no problem

Mystique M.

grandioso!

March 10, 2025

un curso fácil,diverido pero sobre todo muy informativo

Yanitzin S.

No Title

March 10, 2025

earl T.

Very Thorough

March 10, 2025

Great course, would recommend it to anyone in the food service industry

Brent M.

Easy to Follow

March 10, 2025

I appreciated the flow of the training course and it was fairly easy to obtain the information being taught.

Jennifer

Good

March 10, 2025

Buena para aprender cosas diferentes acerca de como trabajar con la comida

Daniel

Informational, thorough, logical

March 10, 2025

The AAA food manager’s course is very well put together and easy to understand. It prepared me for pretty much everything that I may need to and have to know in order to properly handle not just my business but my personal health outside of this in my own home.

Leonel E.

Student

March 10, 2025

resourceful and explicit training

Christelle

No Title

March 10, 2025

excelente manera de enseñanza, y explicación muy dinámica la instrucción del curso.

YHORMAN M.
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Food Manager Reviews

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star (2)
7,410 reviews
4.9
4.9 out of 5 stars (based on 7,410 reviews)
Excellent93%
Very good5%
Average1%
Poor0%
Terrible1%

Very informative!

March 11, 2025

I love that you are able to go back and rewatch the videos that you want to rewatch. They give great example of how things work and actually make it easy to follow along.

Megan

Great Course, easy to navigate.

March 11, 2025

The course is very easy to follow, informative and provided all the necessary information required to achieve success.

Pawan G.

Easy to follow and stay engaged

March 11, 2025

chrissy

No Title

March 11, 2025

learned a lot more in depth about food service rather than the basic food handler permit!

Celine P.

Very informative

March 11, 2025

Easy to use

Kari M.

Very detail and to the point

March 11, 2025

been in the food industry for more than 12 years but picked up lot of new and updated information

from the course.

Rishi

Easy

March 11, 2025

Quick easy and to the point

Gaby

Food manager training course

March 11, 2025

Great visuals/audio to represent and teach individuals how to practice safe managerial roles in food business’

Devynn

Great training!

March 10, 2025

I enjoyed this training and found it very easy to navigate!

Meghan

Excellent learning material

March 10, 2025

Paul

Great course

March 10, 2025

Informative. I believe the time temperature controls, food borne illness and sanitation are the most important.

Andrew J.

Summery

March 10, 2025

It was a qiuick and easy course. Was able to understand it with no problem

Mystique M.

grandioso!

March 10, 2025

un curso fácil,diverido pero sobre todo muy informativo

Yanitzin S.

No Title

March 10, 2025

earl T.

Very Thorough

March 10, 2025

Great course, would recommend it to anyone in the food service industry

Brent M.

Easy to Follow

March 10, 2025

I appreciated the flow of the training course and it was fairly easy to obtain the information being taught.

Jennifer

Good

March 10, 2025

Buena para aprender cosas diferentes acerca de como trabajar con la comida

Daniel

Informational, thorough, logical

March 10, 2025

The AAA food manager’s course is very well put together and easy to understand. It prepared me for pretty much everything that I may need to and have to know in order to properly handle not just my business but my personal health outside of this in my own home.

Leonel E.

Student

March 10, 2025

resourceful and explicit training

Christelle

No Title

March 10, 2025

excelente manera de enseñanza, y explicación muy dinámica la instrucción del curso.

YHORMAN M.
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Great course

March 11, 2025

Easy and informative

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Great information which I should know about

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Very easy to follow

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Joseph

beverage service

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the training course was very helpful, and very user friendly

perla S.

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March 10, 2025

it was a long training but with everything that i need to know

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March 10, 2025

Alannah L.

Informative & Easy to Navigate

March 10, 2025

Very intuitive and easy to use. Thank you!

Mario L.

Very well organized with graphics and sound.

March 9, 2025

I recommend this course.

Alexander

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March 9, 2025

Maria R.

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March 8, 2025

The course was very educational and easy to follow. The course was very thorough in covering many aspects of serving alcohol.

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March 8, 2025

Justin

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David

n/a

March 8, 2025

N/A

David

Alcohol Server Training

March 8, 2025

I really like it how they explain step by step

Johana S.

No Title

March 7, 2025

Great

Diego

Thorough

March 7, 2025

I knew some and learned some more. Very long process

Kathy C.
Group 5705
4.8
(1,361 reviews)

Alcohol Training Reviews

4.8

star (2)
1,361 reviews
4.8
4.8 out of 5 stars (based on 1,361 reviews)
Excellent89%
Very good6%
Average3%
Poor1%
Terrible1%

Great course

March 11, 2025

Easy and informative

Andrew

No Title

March 11, 2025

Great information which I should know about

Tomohiro K.

No Title

March 11, 2025

Holly

No Title

March 11, 2025

cameron

Course

March 11, 2025

Very easy to follow

Michelle

No Title

March 10, 2025

elizabeth M.

No Title

March 10, 2025

Joseph

beverage service

March 10, 2025

the training course was very helpful, and very user friendly

perla S.

RBS

March 10, 2025

it was a long training but with everything that i need to know

Oriana

No Title

March 10, 2025

Alannah L.

Informative & Easy to Navigate

March 10, 2025

Very intuitive and easy to use. Thank you!

Mario L.

Very well organized with graphics and sound.

March 9, 2025

I recommend this course.

Alexander

No Title

March 9, 2025

Maria R.

Review of RBS Training Course

March 8, 2025

The course was very educational and easy to follow. The course was very thorough in covering many aspects of serving alcohol.

Cheryl H.

No Title

March 8, 2025

Justin

No Title

March 8, 2025

David

n/a

March 8, 2025

N/A

David

Alcohol Server Training

March 8, 2025

I really like it how they explain step by step

Johana S.

No Title

March 7, 2025

Great

Diego

Thorough

March 7, 2025

I knew some and learned some more. Very long process

Kathy C.
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Starting at $7.95

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