Psychology of food menu design
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Psychology of food menu design
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Re: Psychology of food menu design
#2It's interesting to read the reasons behind some of these decisions. What frustrates me as a buyer though is the process of buyer remorse when I dint fully understand the options in the menu I buy something that sounds good but is not what I wanted as I just wasn't able to parse it correctly.
Re: Psychology of food menu design
#3Lol, this article is complete crap. No restaurant wants you to not order something. What they want is you, coming in the door, having a good time and ordering a bit of everything.
Now if some restaurants have items they feel differentiates them from other, they want you to have some of that.
But there was never an instance where, when I designed a menu (worked as a cook/chef in some pretty high end places, including one ranked in the top 100 in the world), I ever wanted someone to not order something.
Edit - I love it, downvoted by a bunch of people who have likely never worked in a restaurant let alone designed a menu or ran a restaurant.
Re: Psychology of food menu design
#4Menu hack for vegetarians/vegans at meat-focused restaurants: Scan the ingredients across all plates on the menu: these are items that the kitchen has made or has readily available. Ask to swap the meat in a dish with something from that list.
Very useful in areas where "I'm vegetarian, what do you recommend?" is answered with "we have this lettuce salad". And yes, that's still a lot of places once you're away from the east and west coasts.
Re: Psychology of food menu design
#5> According to an experiment conducted by Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell University, sales increase almost thirty percent when menu items are accompanied by a well-written description. Diners also gave these items more favorable feedback and felt more satisfied after eating them.
This is interesting to me. Yes, these are sales techniques and the primary benefactor is the restaurant because they make more profit. But if the diner felt more satisfied after eating the better described food, is it also providing a benefit to the diner by subconsciously helping them enjoy the meal more? (nb: I haven't looked at the study to see if the article is accurately representing what it said.)
(I can also say that the only time I have eaten at a restaurant with these kind of prices was in the late 90s when I was doing a website for one. They gave me free meals when I did the work on site, so I got to enjoy some expensive meals that were outside my budget. It was quite nice, but in the end I'm a $10 meal kind of person.)
Re: Psychology of food menu design
#6I hated the menu where the prices were spelled out, e.g. "NINE FIFTY" and "THIRTEEN". Yuck.
Re: Psychology of food menu design
#7Lol, this article is complete crap. No restaurant wants you to not order something. What they want is you, coming in the door, having a good time and ordering a bit of everything. Now if some restaurants have items they feel differentiates them from other, they want you to have some of that. But there was never an instance where, when I designed a menu (worked as a cook/chef in some pretty high end places, including…
The really important line:
Now, this isn’t some kind of a scam where the restaurant rips you off. The restaurant can’t make you order you something you don’t want.
No kidding. That being said, maybe this all makes more sense in the context of "stuff that doesn't work, but consultants can still sell" rather than ever mattering to the diner.
Re: Psychology of food menu design
#8> According to an experiment conducted by Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell University, sales increase almost thirty percent when menu items are accompanied by a well-written description. Diners also gave these items more favorable feedback and felt more satisfied after eating them. This is interesting to me. Yes, these are sales techniques and the primary benefactor is the restaurant because they make more profit. But if…
I remember when this trend started years ago. All of a sudden every restaurant (particularly in the fast casual category) started adding farm names and artisanal this or hand-crafted that. It was all still the same old frozen bulk goods and the quality didn't change at all. The only thing that changed was they marked up the price.
Then during the recession another worrying trend started--appetizer prices started climbing dramatically to the point where they weren't really that much cheaper than a main course. I recall reading something around how this was in response to people trying to cut back significantly on restaurant spending by just ordering appetizers instead of an entree.
These days it seems like the fastest growing item in terms of cost is drinks. Toss some powdered drink mix or syrup into a glass with mostly ice and water, call it something exotic like "Refreshing organic passion fruit spritzer" and charge $4 for it.
Re: Psychology of food menu design
#9> According to an experiment conducted by Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell University, sales increase almost thirty percent when menu items are accompanied by a well-written description. Diners also gave these items more favorable feedback and felt more satisfied after eating them. This is interesting to me. Yes, these are sales techniques and the primary benefactor is the restaurant because they make more profit. But if…
After tax and tip… I'd be happy to have a beer for $10 to go along with my nonexistent meal.
Re: Psychology of food menu design
#10> According to an experiment conducted by Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell University, sales increase almost thirty percent when menu items are accompanied by a well-written description. Diners also gave these items more favorable feedback and felt more satisfied after eating them. This is interesting to me. Yes, these are sales techniques and the primary benefactor is the restaurant because they make more profit. But if…
I remember when this trend started years ago. All of a sudden every restaurant (particularly in the fast casual category) started adding farm names and artisanal this or hand-crafted that. It was all still the same old frozen bulk goods and the quality didn't change at all. The only thing that changed was they marked up the price. Then during the recession another worrying trend started--appetizer prices started clim…
I remember eating at Oola in SF once and wondering what "hand-cut kennebeck potatos" would look like. The answer: just regular old french fries.