I’ll return HALF of your consulting fee if I cannot improve your food cost!
What is the most important marketing tool in a restaurateur’s arsenal????
It’s the menu, but over 90% of restaurateurs ignore its incredible potential, per National Restaurant Association research studies. Put simply, application of “Menu Engineering” can dramatically impact a restaurateur’s profitability. So, just what is menu engineering?
What an individual item or a menu yields in total gross profit dollars is far more important than food or beverage cost because menu engineering acknowledges that you take and deposit dollars in the bank, not actual food or beverage items.
One of the most profitable restaurant owners I have ever known ran a 45% food cost but was more profitable and took more money to the bank than most any competitor, including my own businesses, that I have known.
Menu engineering encompasses analyzing your entire product or menu mix to yield a scorecard matrix that details everything you sell…..how many of each item sold, what each item costs, what each items yields in gross profit, and what the individual cost is for each item.
To illustrate, what would you rather sell:
A hamburger and fries that sells for $9, costs you $3, and has $6 in gross profit and a food cost of 33%
or
A salmon dinner that sells for $15, costs you $6, and has $9 in gross profit and a food cost of 40%?
Menu engineering uses this information to strategically market what you want to sell (these should be your signature items, the items that make your business different from your competition) on your menu copy to your best advantage. Whether you are fast food, fast-casual, table service or fine dining, or are a bar selling a variety of different beers, wines and/or alcoholic drinks, where and how you put your signature items on your menu copy is essential to yield the best overall gross profit to optimize your profit potential.
The principle of strategic engineering of information is the same that applies to general advertising in newspapers or magazines and is a tactic that has been proven millions of times over decades. I have used these principles in the hundreds of restaurants I have run over the past thirty years. It is much like a tune-up for a car….an ongoing process that needs visitation and refinement one or two times per year to keep up with changes and rotation of your menu items.
I can show you how to easily apply these principles into your own operation and how to regularly have your own management do your own tune-ups.
To gain some further insight or get some answers to your questions, view my advisory consultancy website at www.wjpostrestaurantadvisors.com, contact me directly at bpost1100@hotmail.com, or call me directly at 847-275-5437.