Latest / The Side Hustle Career Podcast with Fexingo: Second Income, Freelancing While Employed / How a Restaurant Server Built a 5000 Monthly Side Hustle in Menu Engineering
Transcript
- Lucas: If you've ever looked at a restaurant menu and wondered why the most expensive steak is listed first, or why there's a random $45 lobster tail next to a $28 pasta dish — you've been menu-engineered. Luna: And you probably fell for it. I know I have. Lucas: Exactly. Today's guest — and I use 'guest' loosely because we're telling her story — is Jenna Mendoza. She spent five years waiting tables in San Diego, and she now runs a menu engineering consulting business on the side that brings in around $5,000 a month. She works with about eight to ten small restaurants at a time. Luna: And she didn't have a degree in marketing or data science. She just paid close attention to what worked. Lucas: Right. She started noticing patterns. Which items sold out first, which ones got returned, which tables took longest to decide. And she began testing small changes — like moving the $32 ribeye to the top right corner of the menu, which is a high-visibility zone based on eye-tracking studies. Luna: And that's the core of menu engineering — it's about layout, pricing, and description. Not just listing dishes. Lucas: Exactly. There's a whole framework. Restaurants categorize items into four buckets: stars, plowhorses, puzzles, and dogs. Stars are high-profit and high-popularity. Plowhorses are low-profit but popular. Puzzles are high-profit but low-popularity. And dogs are low-profit and low-popularity — you want those off the menu. Luna: So Jenna essentially helped restaurants identify which dishes were their stars and then design the menu to draw attention to those. Lucas: Yes. And she charged a flat fee — around $500 per restaurant for an initial audit and redesign. That's a pretty accessible rate for a small business, and it scales fast when you're working with multiple clients. Luna: That's a smart model. And look, if we've helped you think through a career move or just given you a practical idea you can actually use — a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these episodes ad-free. It's at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, if you've gotten something out of them. Lucas: Yeah, it really does make a difference. So Jenna's first client was a neighborhood Italian place. She noticed their most profitable dish — a $22 puttanesca — was buried in the bottom left corner, which is where people's eyes go last. She moved it to the top center, added a box around it, and sales of that dish went up 30% in a month. Luna: Thirty percent. That's not a tweak — that's a transformation. And the restaurant didn't change the recipe or the price. Lucas: Right. That's the key. Menu engineering isn't about tricking people. It's about removing friction. A well-designed menu helps diners make faster, more satisfying choices — and the restaurant captures more value. Luna: So how did Jenna actually learn this? Did she take a course? Lucas: She read a few books — 'Menu Engineering' by Michael L. Kasavana and Donald I. Smith is the classic — and she studied a ton of menus from chains like Cheesecake Factory and The Capital Grille, which are known for their engineering. But mostly she just experimented with A/B testing on her own job. Luna: A/B testing a menu as a server — that's pretty clever. She'd suggest a different layout and track how the covers changed. Lucas: Exactly. She'd print a modified version of the menu, bring it to work, and see if the average check went up. After a few rounds, she had enough data to approach the owner and say, 'I can help you make $2,000 more a month by rearranging your menu.' That got her first paid project. Luna: And now she's got clients ranging from a vegan café to a steakhouse. What's the most common mistake she sees? Lucas: Two things. First, menus that are too cluttered — too many items, no clear hierarchy. The industry rule of thumb is that for every item beyond about 30, you start confusing people, which slows down ordering and reduces satisfaction. Second, they put dollar signs everywhere, which makes price more salient. Jenna removes dollar signs and uses a clean list format. Luna: Right, because if you list items as $22, $28, $45, the customer's brain focuses on the numbers. But if you write '22', '28', '45' — no symbol — it feels less like a transaction. Lucas: Exactly. There's a study from Cornell that showed removing dollar signs increases average spend by about 8%. And another trick she uses is the 'decoy' — you put a high-priced item next to a mid-priced one so the mid-priced looks reasonable. Lobster tail at $45 next to a steak at $32? The steak feels like a deal. Luna: I've definitely been decoyed. I think every time I order a $28 burger, there's a $45 wagyu somewhere on that menu making me feel smart. Lucas: Exactly. So Jenna's typical process: she visits the restaurant, takes photos of the current menu, talks to the chef about margins, then creates a new layout. She uses free tools like Canva and sometimes Adobe InDesign for more polished work. She also runs a heatmap test using a service called EyeQuant — it's a software that predicts where people will look. That's maybe $50 a test, which she passes on to the client. Luna: And then she trains the staff on how to sell the hero items. Because the menu is just the first step — the server's script matters too. Lucas: Exactly. She recommends servers mention two specific dishes as 'favorites' — usually the high-margin stars — and never say 'specials' without a price. If you say 'our special tonight is the halibut' and don't name a price, customers assume it's expensive. But if you say 'the halibut is $26 tonight, and it's incredible', that works better. Luna: So what's the earning potential here? Jenna's at $5,000 a month working maybe 15 hours a week. Could someone scale that? Lucas: Absolutely. She's capped herself intentionally because she's also a full-time server. But there are consultants who charge $1,500 to $3,000 per project and work with 20 restaurants a year. That's $30,000 to $60,000 a year on the side. And you don't need a design background — you need to understand the data and psychology. Luna: And the barrier to entry is low. A restaurant owner can test a new menu for the cost of printing, maybe $50. Lucas: Right. So if someone listening is interested — maybe they work in a restaurant, or they're just a foodie with a business brain — what's the first step? Jenna suggests picking one local restaurant, offering a free audit. Spend an hour mapping out their menu in a spreadsheet: item name, price, cost, margin, estimated popularity. Then suggest one change, track the results for two weeks, and show the impact. Luna: That's a concrete, low-risk pitch. And if you prove a 10% increase in check size, you've got a case study for the next client. Lucas: Exactly. And that's how Jenna built her business — one table, one menu, one data point at a time. She started with zero clients and just a curiosity about why people order what they order. Luna: I love that. It's a reminder that a lot of side hustles come from just paying attention to the details in your everyday job. Lucas: Absolutely. So if you're in hospitality — or even if you're not — menu engineering is a niche with real demand. Every restaurant needs a menu, and most of them are doing it wrong. Luna: Alright, we'll put a link to Jenna's blog in the show notes. And if you have a side hustle story you want us to feature, reach out. Lucas: Thanks for listening. See you next time.