Development of an effective restaurant menu. Research and recommendations

The restaurant menu is a key factor in the choice of certain dishes by the guest, and the profit of the establishment directly depends on this. The object of research is the restaurant business, and the subject is the influence of the restaurant menu on the choice of dishes by its consumers. One of the major problems is that restaurant owners often underestimate the importance of the structure and content of their restaurant menu – the names and descriptions of dishes, the sequence of their arrangement, the number of certain items, the selection and recording of prices, the quality of photographs and the overall appearance of the menu. This task is most often shifted to a graphic designer who does not have a certain competence in this matter. The paper describes various psychological techniques that can have a direct impact on the choice of dishes by the guest on the menu. The method of menu engineering by Michael Kasanava and Donald Smith, the features of the psychology of choice and neuromarketing in the restaurant business are considered. The study used the methodology of focus groups and content analysis. 73 printed restaurant menus were analyzed and 3 focus groups were conducted with specific target audiences. Focus group participants were asked to familiarize themselves with different types of restaurant menus. During the discussion, the participants expressed their opinions, comments and recommendations on the arrangement of dishes in the menu, structure, number of positions, sequence of dishes, etc. Interesting results were obtained, which proved the importance of not only the appearance and beautiful design of the restaurant menu, but also the need to pay great attention to its content, a certain arrangement of texts and structure. This is due to the peculiarities of the psychology of choice and neuromarketing. Thanks to the study, recommendations have been developed on the use of certain psychological techniques for the menu of any restaurant. The implementation of the techniques described in the paper made it possible to create an effective menu for the BLOOM healthy food cafe (Odesa, Ukraine), which led to an increase in sales of the establishment by 15.8 % compared to the previous printed cafe menu.