Latest / Restaurant Business with Fexingo: Food Service, Hospitality, and Independent Operators / Why Restaurant Menu Engineering Is a Behavioral Science
Transcript
- Lucas: You know that moment when you open a menu and your eyes just land on something—and you order it almost without thinking? Luna: All the time. And I always wonder—did they design that? Lucas: Absolutely they did. Menu engineering is one of the highest-leverage profit tools a restaurant has. And it's not just about which items have the best margins—it's about behavioral science. Where your eye lands first, how prices are formatted, even the font size. Luna: So it's like a retail store floor plan, but on a piece of paper—or an iPad screen. Lucas: Exactly. And the research is pretty settled. Eye-tracking studies show that when a guest opens a menu, their eyes go to the top right quadrant first—roughly the center-right of the page. That's the 'sweet spot.' And that's where smart operators put their highest-margin items, not necessarily their most expensive. Luna: So you're not putting the steak there—you're putting the pasta that costs three dollars to make and sells for eighteen. Lucas: Right. And you frame it with what's called a 'decoy.' You list a very high-priced item nearby—say, a forty-five-dollar lobster dish—that makes the eighteen-dollar pasta look reasonable. The lobster isn't meant to sell many units. It's meant to anchor value. Luna: I've seen that at steakhouses. There's always that eighty-dollar dry-aged tomahawk that maybe one table orders. But suddenly the fifty-dollar ribeye feels like a deal. Lucas: Exactly. And one of the classic examples is Shake Shack. Danny Meyer's team designed the menu so that the ShackBurger—their signature item—is in that top right spot. It's priced at eight dollars and fifty cents. But right next to it is a 'Shack Stack'—a burger with a fried portobello mushroom and cheese—for eleven twenty-five. Luna: So the ShackBurger looks like a bargain. And they sell way more of those. Lucas: They do. But the key is that the ShackBurger also has a higher margin than the Stack—fewer ingredients, simpler prep. So they're driving volume on their most profitable item, using a decoy that's just three dollars more. Luna: That's clever. But does it work on digital menus too? Because the eye-scan pattern might be different on a screen. Lucas: It does, but the pattern shifts. On a digital menu—like a tablet or a kiosk—the top center is the prime spot, because that's where the eye starts scanning. And digital menus let you do things like animate certain items or highlight them with a subtle glow. That can boost selection by fifteen to twenty percent. Luna: But you have to be careful with that, right? If every item is highlighted, nothing stands out. Lucas: Exactly. The research says you never want more than two or three visual cues on a single page. Otherwise, you overwhelm the guest and they default to the cheapest option. That's actually a risk with digital menus—operators get excited and clutter the screen. Luna: So the principle is: guide the eye, don't shout at it. Lucas: That's a great way to put it. And there's another trick—price formatting. Leaving the dollar sign off reduces the pain of spending. Studies from Cornell's School of Hotel Administration found that when restaurants listed prices without the dollar sign—just '18' instead of '$18'—guests spent about eight percent more on average. Luna: Because it looks less like a transaction. It feels more like a number than a cost. Lucas: Right. And using words like 'market price' for expensive items—that actually reduces price sensitivity because guests don't have an anchor. But you have to use that sparingly. If everything is market price, people get annoyed. Luna: What about the 'golden triangle' layout? I've heard that term. Lucas: That's the classic three-page menu design. The golden triangle is the top right of the right-hand page, the top left of the left-hand page, and the center. Those are the three spots where the eye goes first. You put your hero items there. And the bottom left corner—that's where you put the items you want to sell the least, maybe the low-margin stuff. Luna: So if you're a diner and you always look at the bottom left, you're probably ordering the chef's least favorite dish. Lucas: Ha—yes, exactly. But here's a subtle one. Gordon Ramsay's restaurants do something interesting: they put a very expensive tasting menu on the first page, like a hundred and fifty dollars per person. That sets a high anchor. Then the a la carte items on the next page—sixty-dollar entrees—feel almost reasonable. Luna: That's psychological priming. You're resetting what 'expensive' means before the guest even gets to the real choices. Lucas: Exactly. And it works. A study from the Journal of Consumer Research showed that when a high-priced item is placed first, the average spend on subsequent items increases by about twelve percent. So the tasting menu isn't just a product—it's a pricing tool. Luna: You know, this is making me think about something. The way you're describing this—it's not manipulative if it's actually creating a better experience. If the guest feels guided and satisfied, that's good business. Lucas: I think that's the right framework. Good menu engineering should feel effortless to the guest. They should feel like they made a smart choice. And if it also drives margin for the operator, that's a win-win. Luna: Quick honest thing—a handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what makes producing this many deep dives possible. No ads, no sponsors—just listeners who find value here. Lucas: Yeah, if these conversations have moved your work forward in some small way, that's exactly what keeps the show going. And we're grateful. Luna: Alright—back to the menu. So we talked about placement and pricing. What about the actual descriptions? Lucas: That's a huge lever. Descriptive language—like 'succulent,' 'hand-cut,' 'wood-fired'—increases perceived value and willingness to pay. One study found that simply adding adjectives increased order rates by twenty-seven percent. But you need to be specific. 'Wood-fired' tells you something about the process. 'Delicious' is meaningless. Luna: So 'wood-fired Neapolitan pizza' beats 'pizza' every time. Lucas: It does. And the number of words matters too. Items with seven to nine words in the description outperform those with fewer or more. Too short and it feels generic. Too long and people skim past it. Luna: There's a sweet spot. Like a headline. Lucas: Exactly. And one more thing—the 'bracketing' effect. If you have a mid-priced wine at forty dollars, and you put a fifty-dollar wine above it and a thirty-dollar wine below it, the forty-dollar wine becomes the 'safe choice.' It's the Goldilocks option. You'll sell more of that than if it were alone. Luna: That's why so many wine lists have that pattern. There's always a 'recommended' tier that's not the cheapest and not the priciest. Lucas: Right. And the data shows that the second-cheapest bottle of wine is the most frequently ordered. So if you're a restaurant, you want that bottle to have a good margin. Don't put your loss leader there. Luna: So if I'm an independent operator listening, what's the single highest-impact change I can make to my menu tomorrow? Lucas: I'd say: audit your golden triangle. Look at the top right, top left, and center of your main menu page. Are those your highest-margin items? If not, swap them. You can test it in a week. Track which items sell more after the change. It's essentially free to do. Luna: And get rid of the dollar signs, I guess. Lucas: That's a close second. Honestly, those two changes alone can lift average check size by five to eight percent. And since you're not adding any food cost, that goes straight to the bottom line. Luna: So menu engineering isn't just about design—it's about profit engineering. Lucas: Exactly. And the best part is, it's one of the few levers you can pull without changing your kitchen operations, without hiring new staff, without raising prices. It's pure behavioral design. Luna: Alright, I'm going to be scrutinizing every menu I see this weekend. Lucas: Good. And you'll probably start noticing the tricks everywhere. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.