The Important Role of Menu in Hotel Management

Because a good menu can attract more tourists. ...

Good dishes should be well matched to retain the taste buds of guests!

1 menu planning

The operation of a restaurant generally goes through four stages, and different stages have different requirements for the menu. Therefore, when planning the menu, it must be designed according to the characteristics of the operation stage. The specific requirements are:

(1) Start the conception stage.

A draft experimental menu should be designed at the conception stage of opening. It can help managers decide the type of restaurant operation. Experimental menu is an important tool to establish restaurant image. If the experimental menu is properly compiled, it can attract the target customers of the restaurant plan and convey the theme of restaurant management.

The menu for starting the conception stage should reflect the following contents:

The target audience of this restaurant. The establishment of the menu should indicate the specific group services, and the design of the menu should reflect which customer groups are targeted at.

Indicates the equipment to be purchased. The menu of applicable periods seems to be a timetable. It reflects which cookers and equipment should be purchased to handle the dishes on the menu and how much space the kitchen should have. For example, if all the dishes on the menu are made by the restaurant itself, and there are no convenient dishes and semi-finished products, then the kitchen area should be preset to be larger.

Who should the restaurant employ? The menu should reflect whether experienced employees or ordinary employees with on-site training are needed. For example, fast food restaurants don't need experienced employees. The menu should indicate the difficulty of food production and service.

Reflect the requirements for restaurant decoration. The dishes provided by the menu must be coordinated with the decoration of the restaurant, and the varieties provided by the menu reflect what kind of dining environment is needed.

② Operation stage

A successful restaurant must conform to food trends and public dining habits. When a restaurant opens, it usually plans some dishes that were popular at that time. If the number of customers decreases after the menu is compiled, the restaurant should analyze the sales of various items on the menu, respond quickly to food trends, add varieties that can increase sales and profits at any time, and delete those varieties that are poorly sold and have low profits.

③ recession stage

If the business of the restaurant declines, the profit rate and return on investment of the restaurant are also declining, and the menu is the key link. We should change the menu, re-evaluate the price, re-analyze the size and structure of the market, and change the dishes when necessary. In the recession stage, we can try to provide some daily specialties to attract customers, and we should focus on promoting those profitable and popular varieties. Sometimes, the change of menu appearance (changing menu layout, design, color, printing style) will also affect restaurant business.

④ Transformation stage

The catering industry will inevitably change. Due to the changes in socio-economic forms and demographic characteristics, it is necessary to change from the current business type to another type. When dietary trends and habits change, restaurants should change their menus and markets in time. The transformation stage affects the renovation and business expansion of restaurants, and it is necessary to change business objectives to increase turnover and profits. To do this, the first thing to change is the menu. Some restaurants require reducing costs to increase profits, so it is necessary to explore new products and new cooking methods that can meet the market demand.

In a word, the function of a successful menu should not only reflect the operating characteristics and scope of the restaurant, but also reflect the service object of the restaurant through the content and price of the dishes. Menus also play the role of conveying product information to customers and promoting restaurants and their dishes. Feedback customer demand through menu analysis.

2. Choice of dishes

How to improve the customer's return rate? How to be invincible in the market competition? The choice of dishes is very important. When designing the menu, besides considering its influence on various business activities of catering enterprises, the following principles must also be followed:

(1) The cuisine should be unique.

Nowadays, restaurants are full of flowers. If a restaurant can create a certain category, a certain variety, a certain cooking method and a certain service dining method that other restaurants don't have or can't catch up with, it can greatly highlight the image of the restaurant and make people think of it when they mention a certain dish. Of course, to do this requires the joint efforts of all the staff in the restaurant, and it is forbidden to create new dishes that lack the proper aesthetic feeling and cannot increase people's appetite.

No matter how distinctive the dishes on the menu are, you must never ignore the creator of the dishes-the chef. When designing dishes, we should consider the chef's cooking skills and specialties, and try to choose the kind of dishes that the chef is good at, so as to avoid dishes that the chef has never operated before. Such a choice is crucial to the reputation of the restaurant.

(2) The variety of dishes should be balanced.

In order to satisfy customers with different tastes, the varieties selected in the menu should not be too narrow. The following factors should be considered when selecting varieties:

The price of each food should be balanced. Due to the different consumption levels of customers, the price of each food should be as high, medium and low as possible within a certain range.

The raw materials are balanced. The raw materials of each dish are different, and the tastes of each customer are different. Some customers don't eat meat, while others don't eat eggs. If the raw materials are well matched, more customers can choose their favorite varieties.

Cooking methods should be balanced. Various dishes are cooked in different ways, such as frying, frying, boiling, steaming and stewing. The texture of the finished product should be raw, old, tender and crisp, and the taste should be salty, sweet, light and spicy.

Nutrition should be balanced.

(3) Choose Mao Lijiao variety.

Restaurant operators are most concerned about their own costs and profits. No operator wants to be unprofitable after hard work. Although some vegetables are expensive, the profit is not considerable after the cost is removed, while some vegetables with low prices may have higher gross profit than those with high prices because of their lower costs. It can be seen that when choosing dishes, we can't just see the high price at hand; We should analyze the level of profit from the perspective of cost. When choosing dishes, we should choose more varieties with large gross profit, and abandon those dishes with small gross profit appropriately, so that all kinds of dishes can learn from each other and maximize profits.

(4) There should not be too many varieties.

There are too many dishes on the menu, which creates obstacles for both restaurants and customers. There are so many dishes that when guests get the menu to order, they have to look at all kinds of dishes one by one. Because of the variety, guests will feel difficult and hesitant when ordering, which takes up the chef's cooking time and reduces the turnover rate of seats because of occupying seats, thus affecting the restaurant's income. Too many varieties will increase the cost of purchasing and storage, and restaurants can't grasp the daily sales of various dishes. When some vegetables are expensive, you can buy such vegetables, but no guests have asked for them for several days. In terms of storage, preservation costs a lot of money, which not only takes up storage space, but also brings trouble to the chef's operation. Putting a variety of ingredients together will make the chef take the wrong ingredients and cook the wrong dishes.

(5) Coordinate with the overall operation.

The decoration environment of the restaurant just reflects the consumption level of the restaurant, and the decoration of the restaurant is also the "invisible value" of the restaurant to a certain extent. There must be a difference in the consumption level between big restaurants and small fast food restaurants. If a restaurant with simple decoration specializes in providing high-grade dishes for customers, customers will feel that they cannot enjoy a comfortable dining environment and think that the price is not worth it, which will lead to contradictions with the restaurant. By the same token, if the dishes provided by a beautifully designed and luxurious restaurant are just ordinary dishes without characteristics, customers will feel lost and disappointed in the restaurant. Therefore, the choice of dishes is not as fine as possible, and the grade and price of dishes should be consistent with the overall operation.

Step 6 cater to customers' needs

Customers are the key to the success of restaurants. Therefore, the business purpose of the restaurant is to meet the needs of different customers as much as possible. Each restaurant must analyze the representative types of guests who come to the restaurant during its operation. Because of the characteristics of such guests, restaurant operators can see a target consumer group, which is equivalent to doing a market survey. If the dishes cooked in the restaurant are to be loved by the guests, it is necessary to know their preferences, income, consumption grades and habits for the main cuisines.