You may want to hire professionals for portions of your menu design. For example, if you plan to have photos of each dish, hiring a photographer can help get the lighting just right to be printed on your menu. If you can’t take photos that accurately represent your dish, it is better to just leave spaces white or blank. Don’t ruin your menu with poor images. If you want your menus to last more than a few days, you may want to laminate them. This is ideal for a restaurant that doesn’t change their menu often, or serves a lot of families with children. Lamination will make your menus durable. If you offer a kids meal that is separate from the adult menu, it will save you a lot of money to laminate it.
How Should a Takeout Menu Design Be Formatted?
Many restaurateurs have a different menu style for people who order take-out food. Changing design isn’t always necessary, however, you may want to add some space for bells and whistles that come alone with your takeout menu. In terms of printing costs and turnaround, it will be most cost-effective for your takeout menu to stay as close to the dine-in format as possible. When you take your menu to the printer, it will typically be a digital file. You should have a file for the dine-in version as well as the takeout version of your menu.
Here are some menu design considerations for take-outs:
- Have you left space to add coupons? If you add coupons, the best area to place them would be on the right hand side of the page as it faces you. Studies show that’s where the eye is draw when surveying a piece of paper. When you add coupons, the length of the paper will be increased to accommodate them
- Place higher priced dishes and specials strategically on the menu. It doesn’t matter if your menu is bi-fold or tri-fold, you will need to make sure that your specials and your most lavish dishes are given proper consideration. Specials should be placed on the same page as the coupons, while your pricier dishes should be displayed at the top of the entrée list. Consider highlighting them further by labeling them “Chef’s pick” or something similar.
- When making your takeout menu, keep folds in mind. For many restaurants, a takeout menu is also used for direct mailing to local residences. With this in mind, you should make sure that the free menu template you choose for your takeout or delivery orders can be considered standardized for mail. Usually, a trifold template will be used for takeout and delivery menus.
- What’s a standard menu format? Usually, when you open up a trifold menu and look inside, you’ll find a neat and tidy arrangement of dining choices. Inside, the three panels function as columns. On the other side, dishes and special that need highlighting will remain on top. When stapled shut, the address will be on the middle outside panel. This should be where you leave room for any coupons or specials.
Comments
Post a Comment