Restaurants Please Stop Changing Your Menu!
Sincerely, All your frustrated customers
Every restaurant does it at least once during their life span while being open. They begin to experiment and either add or remove items that believe sell or don’t. Sometimes those items are our own personal favorites and the moment you no longer see it on the menu is one of the most disappointing moments you will ever experience. Now most restaurants are not guilty of such a crime but many restaurants have a tendency of changing their menu often.
Don’t get me wrong. If there are items on your menu that just don’t sell and cost you a pretty penny to make, then by all means remove the item. What I don’t agree with is a complete overhaul of a menu. To the point where it can potentially leave your customers confused and a bit frustrated with the new menu. Chain restaurants have a very high tendency of doing this. More times than none, they change the promo items, flip the menu around and many times leave their customers asking for items from the old menu.
In my opinion, restaurants should offer a promo menu. Offering a promo menu allows you to receive feedback on new items, what’s hot & what’s not. If you have certain items that just weren’t fan favorites, it would be wise to remove it from future promo menus. Its all about trial and error, but I believe the heart of the menu should always stay in tact. Promo menu offer you that trial and error opportunity without having to overhauling the main menu and potentially making a huge blunder.
Once the restaurant has had an opportunity to sell new items and decipher what guests want and don’t want, from there you can remove or replace those items with the hot new ones. Doing so it will show your customers that you are listening and paying attention to what they want. Having a good ear for these things is super important as it allows you to find what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. Read the reviews on Yelp, Google, etc and sift through the comments. Are enough people missing a certain appetizer or entree? If so, bring it back! Implement the promo menu with a few more items and let the demand dictate what should stay and what should go.
Some restaurants offer certain items on certain days of the week. This strategy can go either way. For example, if you are an Italian restaurant and decide to only sell the veal parmigiana on Wednesdays, then one of two things will occur with your customers. Because they came a day early or a day late, customers may be extremely upset they can’t enjoy the veal parmigiana. The other possibility is customers may make it a priority to come to your restaurant on Wednesdays to order the veal parmigiana.
The tricky part is managing the customers that leave the restaurant upset because they weren’t able to try something they really wanted. Now if your restaurant has quality food or ambiance that leaves a lasting impression, theres the chance they will come back to try the meal they missed.
Again, working on listening to what your customers want is super critical when curating a menu. You want to ensure that customers have their personal favorites but also other items they can choose from if they ever want to try something new.
