Two questions per dish
How popular is it, relative to the rest of its section? And how much cash margin does it return per sale? Answer both honestly and the menu stops being a list and starts being a portfolio.
The four groups
Popular and profitable: your stars. Protect the recipe, give them the best placement and make sure every server can describe them.
Popular but thin: guests love them, the margin does not. Look at portion, cost and price before anything else.
Profitable but overlooked: often a description or placement problem. Rewrite it, move it, recommend it.
Neither: be brave. They are costing you stock and attention.
Be brave with the dishes that earn nothing and sell nothing.
What you need
Accurate dish costs from written specifications, and sales by item for a meaningful period. Your till holds one half; your recipe book should hold the other.
Act with discipline
Change one variable at a time, so you know what worked. Review again at the next menu change. Menu engineering is a habit, not a project.
- Export last month’s sales by dish.
- Put cost and margin beside each one.
- Sort each section into the four groups.
Eight Rabbits Food treats the menu as a connected system: specifications, costing and sales reviewed together, so every change has a reason.
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