To better understand the top 10 mistakes and how to correct them, it might help if we’re all on the same page with what a menu is. A menu should be your most effective marketing tool. It should suggestively sell products, describe your offering in a poetic way, entice an up sell, and – most importantly – be a visual representation of your brand. In addition, it is the place your guests will find what they want to order, so it is also your catalog. Continue reading

Paul and Jessica Reddick, the owners of Smoking Pig BBQ in Northern California were in need of a menu makeover. While their menu items were priced correctly, we knew they could benefit from proper menu positioning, highlighting, and mental anchoring. Let’s dive deeper into each one of these important strategies. Continue reading

Paul and Jessica Reddick, owners of Smoking Pig BBQ Company, know a lot about barbeque, but that wasn’t always the case. Paul’s profession was first an electronics cube-pilot (when I asked Paul to elaborate on what an electronics cube-pilot was he told me not to ask). As a side gig, he started a small catering business in his backyard making barbecue for parties and corporate events. Over the next few years, he grew the business into a three-restaurant chain. He spent nearly seven months perfecting his recipe, making full-cut spareribs, brisket and pulled pork day after day until he got it just right. And his company has made it exactly the same way ever since. Continue reading

Would you spend 29.99 to turn your restaurant staff training into a Restaurant Game? HotOperator recently launched a Restaurant Training Game that gives you a great new way to get your staff excited about increasing your sales, getting you happier... Continue reading

Many restaurants believe that the secret to success is getting butts in seats. The issue with this mentality is that butts in seats do not guarantee that you will make enough money off what you sell in order to stay profitable. If you’d like to stay profitable and cover your increasing payroll costs, these eight tips are sure to help you out... Continue reading

From my perspective, being a menu engineer and marketing consultant for the past 30 years, it seems to me that what the chain needs to focus on is abundance. The cost-cutting you seem to be doing in the stores is reducing the amount of 'stuff' in your pasta, which leaves the guest (me included) getting a lot of noodles, and not much company. Continue reading

Here's How HotOperator Designs an Eye Catching Catering Menu If your goal is to increase your catering revenue, designing an eye catching menu should be at the top of your to-do list. Before you get started, take the time to... Continue reading

As a restaurant operator, you should realize the importance of appetizers on your menu. They can increase your overall profits and lead to a more successful operation. You know your customers visit your restaurant in order to purchase food. However, what you are unsure of is, what they will order. Continue reading

Find out how your restaurant organization could benefit from a well-engineered and professionally designed restaurant menu. Biaggi’s is a casual Italian restaurant that offers an extensive selection of house-made and imported pizzas, pastas, seafood, steak, soups and salads, and desserts.... Continue reading

If the goal of your restaurant is to make money, one of the ways you can turn this goal into a reality is by being strategic about the price list on your menu. On most restaurant menus, prices are placed in one uniform place, making it easy for customers to find and compare prices. Continue reading

When McDonald’s and other fast food chains offer so called value meals, and discounted offers like the 4.99 footlong sub sandwich at Subway, these foodservice giants are missing half of the value equation. Value to them is low price. But that’s only half of the story. Which is why I don't think they understand what value is in restaurant marketing. The real definition of value in marketing is a perfect balance between the price of a product or service and its function or benefit to the purchaser, where price is slightly above benefit. If these two elements are too far apart, you will struggle to sell your goods and services. Continue reading

Here are 5 Way To Make 2018 More Profitable Than 2017 In Your Restaurant Continue reading

With unemployment on the decline, the next year will see a much more difficult difficult time for restaurant owners to get and keep employees. Here are the top 12 characteristics we are looking to promote in your restaurant. Continue reading

The right dessert menu should have great photography, descriptions that help describe and entice, and above all, a design that your guests will respond to. We highly recommend having a professionally design-engineered dessert menu with professional photography. There are just no excuses for trying to make your own menu. It’s like doing your own plumbing, or resurfacing your own parking lot. Professional menu design is a skill that takes years to learn, and will help sell more desserts than anything you can do on your own. Continue reading

If your restaurant servers are like most, they are coin operated. You put a couple bucks into them and they show up and go through the motions. And you’re like most restaurant owners and managers, you’re probably always looking for ways to boost their sales performance. Here is one sure way to get your servers to start paying attention, and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg in the process. Continue reading

Maloney's Pub in Summersville, West Virginia depended on HotOperator over the summer to develop their new menu. Here is the before and after of the Maloney's Pub Menu Design. Continue reading

HotOperator menu design engineering took us to Martin Kentucky this summer to work on Fat Boy's menu for Brown Foodservice. Here is the before and after menu design. Continue reading

We've had a very busy summer with restaurant marketing projects and menu makeovers. Here is one we developed for Rhododendron menu makeover for Brown Foodservice. Continue reading

Beef prices are rising, and as they rise, you may need to consider making adjustments to your menu to help offset those rising food costs. Here are 7 tips to help offset the rising costs of beef without losing any customers. Continue reading

Prices can be all lined up on one side, all pushed off from the item name, all lined up at the bottom of a paragraph, any bold typeface or color change, or really, anything that calls attention to prices on a menu. Would you like to make more money in your restaurant? Stop making price lists. Continue reading

Most restaurant operators look at appetizers like any other item on the menu. This is a mistake, in my opinion, because appetizers, like desserts and sides, are incremental. In other words, they add on to the overall profits of the restaurant and don’t need to pay a share of the overhead or fixed costs in the operation. Continue reading

Putting Pizza in Perspective In Your Restaurant Nearly every Italian restaurant I’ve ever worked with thinks pizza is the most profitable thing they have in their restaurant. And if you look at a large pie at someplace north of $20,... Continue reading

When consumers go into a restaurant, they want to know what you recommend. They are looking for your advice, especially from the chef. So while everything is good, they aren’t going to order everything, they’re going to order something. And that something can have a huge impact on the overall success of your business. How well you position the items on your menu, how well you highlight them, is the secret to getting consumers to order something that will generate more profits. Continue reading

The final design gives Biaggi’s a more contemporary and stylish look that is a little more upscale than their original menu. At the same time, it is still very casual, which is just what the client Continue reading

7 Steps To Becoming Famous In Your Business It matters how famous you are in a capitalist society. So many restaurant operators don’t understand this simple fact about their business. But the more people who know who you are and... Continue reading