Simplify Your Life: Reduce Your Restaurant Menu Items

In these times of economic uncertainty, it is easy to get lost in trying to do many things all at once. A good example is restaurateurs trying to manage their inventories, their staff, their operations, their books, their sales, their marketing… Do you know anybody like that? I thought so. You need to simplify your life and focus on just a few basic core competences to make your restaurant the best it can be to stand out...

Menu Trends: Restaurants Are Introducing A South American Super Crop

This is a story about how an Incan super crop is starting to take over health food stores and trendy restaurants in the U.S.  The rest of the world is already on board with this mysterious super plant; we’re just now catching up.  What’s so great about this plant?  Well, it doesn’t rot, doesn’t need refrigeration, is a complete protein but is dairy and gluten free, and is rich in important vitamins like iron, magnesium,...

Menu Trends: Ruby Red Hibiscus Flavors

Hibiscus, the beautiful tropical flower, is now making its way into cocktails, teas, and desserts in some of the trendiest urban restaurants.  The taste is described as both fruity and floral, with a tartness not unlike lemon.  From the perspective of presentation, hibiscus flavored drinks and desserts turn an appealing ruby red color.  Some supermarkets are even carrying hibiscus flavored drinks. Our neighbors to the south...

Using Salad to Your Restaurant’s Advantage

Despite the bad news that fewer people are ordering salads all of the time, the fact remains that, on the whole, people still order salads regularly. In fact, the same poll of 500 diners revealed that 77 percent said they ordered a salad at least sometimes. An additional 16 percent said they rarely ordered a salad. That means your salad has the chance to attract a whopping 94 percent of diners. So, which toppings should your salad...

Menu Pricing’s Theory Of Relativity

In a previous oldie-but-goodie Back Burner post I talked about menu engineering – how to put together a menu that effectively markets your dishes and makes customers want to spend more and buy high margin menu items.  One thing that post did not touch upon, however, was how to price and organize those prices...

Healthy Menu? Don’t Tell Your Customers

Ask anyone sitting on their couch around dinnertime if they want a healthy pizza, and you’ll probably get a lukewarm response.  Not that people don’t want to eat healthier.  Study after study has shown that consumers, when asked when they aren’t actively ordering food at a restaurant, want healthy menu options.  But as I have...

How Sub Culture Is Pirating Fine Dining In San Francisco

What if you were told about a restaurant that had no fixed location or menu and kept this information a secret until just a few hours before you leave for dinner?  The Dissident Chef of San Francisco does just this to his patrons on a regular basis.  They purchase tickets without any idea...

Want Your Fast Food Fancy?

A website called Fancy Fast Food has taken all the mass produced food that makes Americans fat but that we love to eat and turned it into top quality fine cuisine, complete with garnish.  The results are actually very stunning, even after viewing the before picture.  Some examples include: Nathan’s Not-So-Famous Faux Foie Gras – 6 Nathan’s Famous...