Art of making a restaurant menu plan

I have created an article on how to create a restaurant menu plan in Japanese style.
I have always admired Japanese people on how they manage their works perfectly, their politeness. All of these features reflect perfectly on their methods of managing a restaurant. I have attended one seminar and read a specific academic article about how Japanese people prepare and make their menus, how to create a successful and mesmerizing menu. It was long and full of tricks. 

I have gathered one particular simple method in my article.
If you are finding how to make menu, what makes menu manageable then this article will help you.

You may have come across some famous restaurants that attract thousands of customers everywhere and long list of regular customers. You want to create your own restaurant and wonder what their secret is. Many ideas have crossed your mind: exterior and interior design of your restaurant, style of your brand and services. And, of course, the most headache thing is how to make a menu.

I have a friend who owns one of the most famous coffee shop in my home city since his grandfather first opened in 1952. His restaurant does not have fancy furniture or elegant atmosphere. Still that local coffee shop still beats others coffee shop like Starbuck in numbers of faithful customers. As you can guest, the secret stays in the MENU. Surprisingly, that secret is very the same to what I have been taught in one business seminar in Japan on how to make menu that can attract long term customers.

The secret is very simple: Categorizing your menu.

Many people think that to attract more customers and raise profit, they have to create a large menu with many choices. However, you cannot just add something new to your menu every time some customers complain “why don’t you have this food?”
Indeed, big and various menu is appealing. But you have to take more operational time to maintain and control it. Making similar foods saves time than makes many dishes at the same time. You have to hire more people too. Food preservation is also the problem.
The better method is dividing your menu into categories. It is easier to identify which food is less favored and when to replace it.

There are four parts: classic menu, original menu, signature menu and seasonal menu.

● Classic menu

The menu that sticks forever wherever the business goes. No need to change this menu.

● Original menu

It is a menu group that matches with the concept of your restaurant. Customers can get the brief understanding of your restaurant style just looking at this menu. Is this restaurant suitable for impressive elegant dinner party with exquisite meals or warming atmosphere with pasta and pizza? Do you want a sea food based menu or gluten free menu? Put main dishes that can convey image of your brand best into this menu.
In this menu, you need to take time to evaluate how much profit one dish brings you. Take a close look and identify which one is the most popular and which is not. Replace the least favored one after a certain time.　　

● Signature menu

Everywhere I go, I wish the restaurants would have this kind of menu so I can save time from spending too much time browsing through the menus but still unable to tell what I want.
This menu is what you want to sell. This is the product your restaurant is proud of most and highly recommended. Even if you don’t have any ideas of what to put in here, take time to investigate and put something up here. Customers will be more likely to choose from this list rather than others. Also, it would be much effective to draw customers in when putting this menu outside so they will know what makes you different from others.
It would take lots of time to develop ideas of perfect signature menus. But once you made it, you do not need to change this at least for one year.
Let put all the effort and creativity to this one.　　　

● Finally, seasonal menu

If your country is blessed with four different beautiful seasons then why not take advantage of these?
As the name point out, this menu will change as season change. Or you can change it more often depends on the local festival events or seasonal events.

Making menu small and manageable allows you time to experience new direction and new idea, reduce the chance of wasted products and increase service speed. Customers will be keen on visiting your restaurant with every little change you add to the menu occasionally.

Here is list of useful sites you can visit to find some fine-looking templates for your restaurant menu.
Must have menu
Menu Multi tools
Menusnearu.com
Make menu online