HAS YOUR MENU BECOME TOO LARGE
You need to have a large enough menu to entice and excite customers, but not so many items that you merely confuse them.
I think an overly large menu can hurt a restaurant in several ways:
- It forces you to order too much inventory, some of which will spoil;
- It puts too many demands on the kitchen.
- It can confuse the customer. People don´t know what to choose. Also, they will think (accurately) that you can’t do that many things well.
So what’s the right number of menu items? It depends on what your selling …
A good burger place might get away with just 10. A Chinese restaurant is going to need a few more.
In general, 25 items should be more than enough: for example, 7 starters / entrée, 12 main courses and 6 desserts. Over 30 menu items, and you should really be thinking about cutting back.
What are your thoughts on the points above? Let me know in the comments!
