[00:00:00] Most restaurant owners think their menu is about the food, right? It's about creativity, about expression, about showing their range. But that belief is quietly wrecking restaurants. Because your menu is not a creative document. It is not branding, it is not art. Your menu is an operating system. And if the operating system is bloated, inefficient and fragile, then everything downstream breaks. Meaning labor, speed, consistency, margins, even morale. So today, we're going to tear down the most emotionally protected document in your restaurant and we're going to talk about what it really is. And then, most importantly, we're going to rebuild it the way profitable operators actually know how to do it. All of that on today's episode of Restaurant Strategy.
[00:00:47] There's an old saying that goes something like this. You'll only find three kinds of people in the world. Those who see, those who will never see, and those who can see when shown.
[00:00:57] This is Restaurant Strategy, a podcast with answers for anyone who's looking.
[00:01:18] Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in. I am your host. My name is Chip Close. This is the Restaurant Strategy podcast. Two episodes every single week. If you've been listening for a little while, you know I run a coaching program. It's called the Pete Mastermind. I wrote a book, it's called the Restaurant Marketing Mindset. I give talks, I host a membership site. Mostly though, this show is my baby. If you get any sort of value out of the show, I want you to do something really quick for me. Pause the show and go to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a five star rating and review. Now, obviously, if you feel like we don't deserve five stars, don't give us five stars. But if you get any sort of value, if we have helped you, the insights, the advice that we give here on the show every week, if it has impacted you in any way, then hit pause, go to Apple Podcasts and go. Leave us that rating and review. Review. I simply want you to let other people know what you get out of this so that they can know that this is a show worth listening to. I have dedicated the last seven plus years to this show, helping independent restaurant owners do the things they need to do to level up, to make more and work less. That's the heart of this show. If you can help me do that, that would help me, my small business continue to grow.
[00:02:26] Now, if you've listened to this show for any length of time, you've heard me talk about Kickfin. Because they've been a trusted partner of mine for years and I genuinely believe in what they do for restaurant operators. See, managing tips has always been a headache. There's never enough cash in the drawer at the end of the night. Managers are stuck making bank runs throughout the day and then doing spreadsheet math at, I don't know, one, two in the morning. Tip pooling regulations keep getting more complex. It's just not fun. And that's exactly why Kickfin exists. With Kickfin, restaurants can calculate tip pools automatically and send instant cashless tip payouts to employees existing bank accounts. And I said cashless. No cash, no predatory pay cards, no glitchy employee apps required. Your team gets their tips fast in the account they choose, right? When their shift ends, Kickfin integrates with all the major POS players. So Toast Square, skytab, Genius Union, and many more. So you get fully automated end to end tip management. It's fast, it's accurate, and it gives you a clean digital record for accounting and compliance. Kickfin powers tip payouts for every type of concept, from mom and pop shops to regional hospitality groups to national brands like Walk On Sports Bistro, Marco's Pizza and Toasted Yolk Cafe. Great hospitality starts behind the scenes when your people feel valued, when they are paid fairly and paid fast, I promise everything improves. And Kickfin makes that possible. If you're ready to save hours every week, eliminate those cash runs, streamline your accounting, and make tip payouts the best part of everyone's day. Visit kickfin.comdemo and yes, that link is in the show notes.
[00:04:08] Now, most menus are built emotionally, not necessarily strategically.
[00:04:15] So let's start with how menus actually get created. I'm sure this will resonate. They don't start with systems. They start with feelings. Meaning, oh, I like this dish. Or this, this sells really well. Or this, this used to sell really well. That's my favorite. Well, we can't take that off. I mean, people will be mad. I mean, Ned comes in every Thursday and gets that. Well, you know, guys, you have to understand, the chef really believes in this one. How many times have you heard that? How many times have you heard yourself say that? And what happens is, menus become museums, Museums of past decisions, Museums of your hopes for your restaurant and for the dishes you've created for your restaurant.
[00:04:52] And then when that happens, nothing ever leaves. Everything gets justified and complexity quietly piles up. And that's not hospitality. That's fear management. And fear driven menus are the most expensive kind of menus out there. See, every menu item is a promise, and promises compound cost.
[00:05:12] There's a mental shift that most owners never make. A menu item is, is not just a recipe. It really is a promise. Right? We talk a lot about the brand promise, meaning what do people expect to get out of a meal at your restaurant? They believe something when they make the reservation or when they decide to sit down. And then your experience, your hospitality, your food, all of that has to deliver on that, has to deliver on that promise. The same thing is true with your menu. Your menu is a promise to, I don't know, source ingredients consistently, prep it correctly every time, train every new hire on it, execute it during even the busiest service, played it under pressure, or replace the cook who knows it best.
[00:05:58] See, each new item multiplies. It multiplies prep hours, inventory, skus, training complexity, and the probability of mistakes. See, owners see menu size as neutral, but I'm here to tell you it's not. Menu size is one of the largest hidden cost drivers in your business.
[00:06:18] See, menu complexity shows up as other problems. A lot of people don't realize that those other problems are downstream of the menu problem, right? So this is why menus are so dangerous. It's why we're talking about it today. Because they don't break loudly, they break indirectly. The menu doesn't look broken, even though other things are. Menu problems show up as well. Why is the labor so high? Or why are ticket times inconsistent? Or man, why does training seem to take so long? Or why do cooks burn out out? Or why does quality dip when we're busy?
[00:06:51] See, all of that has to do with the structure of your menu. Labor is high because it costs a lot. Takes a lot of people to prep and cook those dishes, because a lot of dishes get picked up off of certain stations. And so you need to overstaff because when they're picking up six, seven, eight dishes off the line, it's a lot. It's a lot to prep every night. It's a lot in their meat trays, and it's a lot for them to remember, know, and be able to execute quickly. Ticket times are inconsistent because the menu. Some dishes take longer to execute than the others. Right? The best chefs I've worked with are really good about thinking about the pickup. Right. See, owners try to fix the symptoms individually, meaning new schedules, more staff, more prep, more meetings about the schedules, the staff, the prep. But the menu keeps quietly sabotaging everything.
[00:07:40] That is the problem that often causes so many other problems. We're going to talk about what those problems are, most importantly how to fix them. After a word from another one of our sponsors, Ajinomoto is your Answer to every busy dinner rush spent deep in the weeds. When hungry customers walk through your door, they expect good food, right? Good food that tastes homemade. But making every dish from scratch can cut into your profits. Certainly what we're talking about today, especially with the cost of ingredients and yes, the cost of labor.
[00:08:14] That's where Ajinomoto Foods comes in. Ajinomoto has a huge catalog of fast, easy to prep frozen Asian products that taste and look homemade. That includes classics like fried rice dumplings and onion rings and new trendy fusion plates like kimchi chicken pot stickers. See, Choosing Ajinomoto is choosing over 100 years of proven expertise in the food service space.
[00:08:39] Choose to save time. Choose to save money in your busy kitchen without compromising on the quality your customers have come to expect.
[00:08:47] Learn more about
[email protected] and yes, you'll find that link in the show notes.
[00:08:55] Now, when we're talking about menus, I want to talk. Let's address the elephant in the room. Let's talk about the big menu. Big menus require heroes, right? And heroes don't scale. So here's the truth. Every great multi unit operator learns. And they either learn it because they listen or they learn it the hard way by going through the fire.
[00:09:16] You cannot scale heroics. See, large menus, complex menus depend on memory, experience, intuition, instinct and often specific, highly trained people.
[00:09:30] But what happens when those people leave? When those people leave the system, the system that's built on heroics will collapse every single time. And that's not a restaurant. That is a personality driven operation. A restaurant is a machine. It is a series of systems. Profitable restaurants don't depend on heroes. They depend on repeatable execution. What is it we talk about so much here? The key to systems and goals. A goal is what you're looking to accomplish. A system is just a crappy corporate word that really means a repeatable set of actions. So way back when McDonald's famously told their shareholders, we're simplifying the operation so that 16 year olds can execute this flawlessly every time. Because we believe our restaurants will mostly be run by 16 year olds. 16 year olds without even a high school diploma.
[00:10:21] That's the kind of thinking you need to employ.
[00:10:24] Again, I say this a lot too. We don't have to. We don't have to rethink. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. We don't have to rethink our whole operation. The key is there are a lot of other people who are smarter than we are and more, more advanced further along the road than we are. And in my experience, the very best owners and operators just look to people who are further down the road and just copy what they're doing. Cody Sanchez, podcaster, talks all about this, right? She says, first we imitate, then we iterate, then we innovate. The three eyes, right?
[00:10:56] It's about repetition. It's about repetition. And then you can tweak things. And you certainly do that long before you try to create something brand new. Oftentimes, you never even have to get to the creating something brand new again. Profitable restaurants don't rely on heroes. They depend on repeatable, systematic execution.
[00:11:18] Now, the men, you should reduce decisions, not create them. And let me explain what I mean here, because this is a real paradigm shift. A great menu eliminates decisions. What I mean by that is shared ingredients, shared prep, predictable flow and limited variations.
[00:11:36] Bad menus are forcing constant thinking, meaning what station does this go through? Or who knows how to make this? And do we 86 it or just sort of wing it or tweak it and see what happens is that thinking during service is expensive.
[00:11:51] Systems are meant to think for the people, so the people can come in and just do what they can do. Really great. Take all the thinking out of it. All the thinking. The brainstorming happens before service so that in service, your people can just execute. It's a better way of leveraging their skills, their time, their abilities. You're going to make for a smoother shift for them and they're going to appreciate you for it.
[00:12:14] Now, here's something.
[00:12:15] Most menus are aspirational and not honest, and it's another trap. See, menus often assume full staffing. They assume perfect prep. They assume they've got experienced cooks. They assume calm service. And I think, you know, that reality is a whole lot messier.
[00:12:34] Honest menus reflect acknowledge the fact that you are stuck with the kitchen you have. You are stuck with the team that you actually run with. You're stuck with the volume you get at the times when you get it. So your menu, right, your menu needs to acknowledge the realities of who is actually working in your kitchen. Who is doing the prep work when your reservations come in? Yeah, you could do 200 covers, as long as they're spread out between 5 and 10. But you and I, you and I both know that you'll do 130, 140 covers, all between, you know, 6 and 8.
[00:13:10] So it's a lot different. 140 covers between 6 and 8 is a lot different than 200. Between 5 and 10, that means a push. That means one really big push or two really big pushes in the middle of the night. Your menu needs to be able to be executed even when you are slammed. And this is crucial. It's not about lowering your standards. It's about leadership. This is about acknowledging the realities of where you're at and putting something into place that will succeed no matter what.
[00:13:39] So let me make the case for small menus. Small menus create confidence both internally and externally. This is really important, right? So here's what smaller menus do on the kitchen side, people can master faster. They make fewer mistakes, which leads to more pride, more confidence with your cooks. For front of house, it's easier for them to sell. They can make clear recommendations. They can take the order quicker, which increases table times, which, again, leads to more confidence on the part of your servers, bartenders, matt, managers. And for the guests, it means less decision fatigue, more trust, and, yes, ultimately, higher satisfaction. Confidence compounds, and it's counterintuitive, right? You think, oh, I want to give people lots of options so that I make sure they find something they love. But by giving people less options, you're saying, man, you're. Even though there's less, I promise you're going to find something you love. Because we crush these eight items, you're not going to find 14 entrees, but we have eight that absolutely crush your cooks. Have confidence. Your servers sell with confidence, and your guests feel confident that you know how to knock each of those out of the park. And I'm guessing If you've got 12, 14, 18, 22 menu items on your entree menu, I'm guessing that if I asked you all of them, if I said, hey, man, president's walking in. Hey, CEO of Disney's walking in. He wants. He wants your best thing. Or president of, you know, president United States is walking in, and he wants your worst thing. Would you still feel confident serving that to somebody that you look up to, somebody you want to impress?
[00:15:20] You got to make sure that no matter what somebody orders, they're going to have a killer meal. Again, confidence compounds, and it's counterintuitive, but I promise, it makes all the difference. And here's the real reframe.
[00:15:31] Your menu is not there to impress, at least not in the size, scope, and variety. It's there to make execution inevitable. See, creativity belongs in technique. Creativity belongs in the dishes you actually put together.
[00:15:46] Creativity is not required for quantity, right? Just because you can show that you can make 22 different entrees. That's not impressing anyone. Show people that you've. You've created eight killer entrees and then execute that flawlessly every single time.
[00:16:04] So here's the action I want you to take, right? I want you to ask this brutally honest question.
[00:16:09] What menu item would collapse first on our busiest night? And you could probably answer that by saying, what menu item consistently collapses when you get busy? And I'm telling you that item doesn't belong. Just get rid of it. Literally get rid of it by this weekend. Here's the deal. Menus don't just sell food. I've said this before.
[00:16:30] Menu is not necessarily a list of all the stuff that someone is that you're prepared to make for someone. A menu is a sales tool. It's a piece of sales collateral that you give everybody and you're trying to show them the very best way to experience your restaurant. They determine how hard your restaurant is to run every day. And it shows people what you're exceptional at. Your menu is not an art project. Your menu is not to show the breadth and scope of what you can do. If you want to show people what you can do, open a different concept with a totally different style of cuisine and show people you can also crush that. And then open another restaurant with a different cuisine and show people you can crush that. That's how you impress. That's for restaurant 23456. This restaurant is about showing people that you are very good at a very specific thing.
[00:17:19] Your menu is about efficiency. And yes, you can impress your people and make a more profitable restaurant by dialing this in. I want to end the way I began, guys. If you get any sort of value from this show, I'd appreciate if you just took one minute, go over to Apple podcasts, leave us a five star rating and review. Obviously, I don't want you to lie, but if you have gotten stuff out of the show, the insights, the advice, the tips, the tactics, the strategies that we share, if you've gotten anything out of the show, just go. Let other people why you think they should tune in. That more than anything would help me and my small business appreciate you guys being here. Thank you very much and I'll see you next time.
