Latest / The Side Hustle Career Podcast with Fexingo: Second Income, Freelancing While Employed / How a Food Truck Owner Built a 10K Side Hustle in Menu Engineering
Transcript
- Lucas: So earlier this week I stumbled on a case study that stuck with me — a woman in Portland who ran a food truck for three years, then turned what she learned into a consulting business making around ten grand a month. And she's not selling recipes or cooking classes. She's selling menu design. Luna: Menu design — like, where things are placed on the page? Lucas: Exactly. But it's way more than layout. It's pricing psychology, profit margin analysis, even eye-tracking data. She calls it 'menu engineering,' and restaurants pay her two to three thousand dollars per engagement to rework their menus. She's got about four clients a month now. Luna: Two to three thousand per restaurant — that's steep. What convinced them to pay that? Lucas: She started by targeting independent pizzerias, which have thin margins — typically around five to eight percent. A small tweak to what customers order can bump that by a point or two. She'd offer a free initial audit: she'd walk in, sit down with the owner, and show them their current menu's blind spots. For example, one place had their highest-margin pasta dish buried in the bottom right corner, which is where people's eyes go last. Luna: So she moved it to the top-left sweet spot. That's classic eye-tracking stuff — the 'golden triangle.' Lucas: Right. She uses a heat-map overlay from a company called SensoMotoric that tracks where diners look first. Turns out 69 percent of people start at the top-left item. So she makes sure the item with the highest profit margin — usually a pasta or a specialty pizza — sits right there. And she removes dollar signs from prices because they trigger a pain response in the brain. Luna: I've read that too — listing prices without the dollar sign makes people spend more. She's basically repackaging academic research into a service. Lucas: And it works. She told me about one client — a pizzeria in Eugene — that saw a 12 percent revenue lift in the first month after her redesign. The owner recouped her fee in under four weeks. That's the kind of ROI that gets you referrals. Luna: That's a great number — 12 percent. But how does she find these clients? Cold calls? Lucas: Mostly warm outreach. She'd go to local restaurant association meetups, chat with owners about their biggest headaches — labor costs, food waste, inconsistent ticket averages. Then she'd say, 'If I could show you a way to increase your average ticket by two dollars without adding a single new dish, would you be interested?' That usually got her a sit-down. She also offered a money-back guarantee for the first two clients, which built trust. Luna: Smart. So she de-risked the buy-in. And now she's got a portfolio of before and after menus she can show. Lucas: Exactly. Her website has a side-by-side comparison of a menu from a Thai restaurant in Seattle — the old version had 48 items crammed into two pages, no visual hierarchy, prices scattered. The new version has 28 items, clear categories, and a 'chef's picks' box in the upper right. That one box alone increased sales of those four dishes by 22 percent. Luna: Twenty-two percent just from grouping and highlighting? That's the kind of stat that sells itself. Lucas: Right. And she charges a flat fee of $2,500 for a full audit and redesign. She says it takes her about 15 hours per project — so her hourly rate works out to around $166. Not bad for a side hustle that started with a food truck and a notebook. Luna: It's also a great example of packaging tacit knowledge. You know, if you've run a small business and learned what moves the needle, you can probably sell that insight back to others in the same space. You don't need a degree in food science or behavioral economics. Lucas: That's the core insight of this whole show, honestly. And it's why so many listeners — including some of you — have told us that episodes like this helped them spot their own marketable skill. If that's the case for you, and you've gotten value from these conversations, there's a small way to keep them going. Luna: Yeah, this podcast is ad-free, and we want to keep it that way. A couple of dollars a month genuinely helps cover hosting and research. If you feel like it, you can head to buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: It's a simple way to support the work we do — and every contribution adds up. So thank you to anyone who's already chipped in. Now, back to menu engineering. She also uses a 'decoy pricing' tactic. For example, she'll put a high-priced premium pizza — like $26 — next to the one she actually wants to sell, which is $22. The $22 one suddenly feels like a deal, and it's often the highest-margin item. Luna: That's the classic popcorn pricing — small, medium, large, where the medium is barely cheaper than the large so you upsell yourself. She's applying it to pizza. Lucas: Exactly. She also removes the cents from prices. Instead of $14.95, she writes $14. It's a small change, but it subconsciously lowers the perceived cost. She's got data from a client where that single tweak lifted check averages by about 3 percent. Luna: Three percent on top of the layout changes. So incremental gains add up. What about the menu description language? Does she rewrite those too? Lucas: She does. She avoids generic adjectives like 'delicious' or 'tasty.' Instead she uses sensory words — 'smoky,' 'crispy,' 'herb-infused.' She also adds a short origin story for signature dishes. One of her clients, a barbecue joint, added a line about the dry rub being a third-generation family recipe. Sales of that dish went up 18 percent. Luna: Storytelling sells. So what's the barrier to entry here? She's got a food truck background — but could someone without that experience do this? Lucas: She thinks so. Her advice is to start by studying menus in your own city. Go to ten restaurants, take photos, map out the layout, note which items are in the 'sweet spots.' Then read a few foundational books — 'Menu Engineering' by Michael Kasavana is the classic, and there's a newer one called 'The Art of the Menu.' Then offer a free audit to one restaurant owner you know. Use that as your portfolio piece. Luna: So the barrier is mostly learning the frameworks and then getting that first case study. It's not capital-intensive. Lucas: Not at all. Her startup costs were basically a laptop, a $40 eye-tracking heat-map license, and a lot of coffee meetings. She built the business over six months while still running her food truck on weekends. Now she's phased out the truck entirely and does this full-time. Luna: And she's at $10k a month — but what's the ceiling? Could she scale to $20k? Lucas: She thinks yes, but it would mean hiring. Right now she does everything herself. To scale, she'd need to train associates to do audits under her brand, or create a software tool that automates parts of the analysis. Some consultants in this space sell templates or online courses. She's considering a $500 menu audit toolkit for smaller restaurants that can't afford the full service. Luna: That's a good model — productize the low end, keep the high-touch consulting for premium clients. I've seen that in other service businesses too. Lucas: It's a classic strategy. And it's worth noting that the restaurant industry is huge — over 700,000 locations in the US alone. Even if you only capture a fraction, the addressable market is enormous. She's barely scratched the surface. Luna: So if someone listening has a background in restaurants, or even just a sharp eye for design and psychology, this is a viable path. Any final tips she shared? Lucas: She emphasized one thing: never criticize the current menu. Instead, frame it as 'optimizing for profit' rather than 'fixing mistakes.' Owners are protective of their menus. You have to treat it like a collaboration, not a critique. Also, she always shows the math — projected revenue lift based on her past results. That's what closes the deal. Luna: Data-driven consulting with a soft touch. That's a good lesson for any side hustle. Lucas: Yeah. So if you've ever looked at a menu and thought, 'I'd rearrange this,' maybe there's a business in that instinct. Luna: And if you've ever thought that about something in your own industry, maybe that's your cue. We'll be back next episode with another concrete case.