A step-by-step approach for restaurant owners to redesign their menu strategically — improving profitability, streamlining operations, and delighting diners.
Turn Your Menu Into a Profit Powerhouse
If you see your menu as just a list of dishes, you’re missing its biggest potential: steering customers toward the options that earn you more. Menu engineering helps you identify which items to promote, which to tweak, and which to retire — driving profit and maintaining quality.
1. Categorise Your Dishes
Divide your offerings into four quadrants based on profit margin and popularity:
- Stars (Popular + Profitable)
- Puzzles (Profitable but Unpopular)
- Plowhorses (Popular but Thin Margins)
- Dogs (Unpopular + Unprofitable)
This framework guides your decisions—whether to promote, reposition, or remove items.
2. Pull Data from Your POS
Your POS captures dish-level sales and pricing. Use it to calculate cost, margin, and unit sales. Look at your POS dashboard and pull a report for the past 90 days. Identify dishes in each quadrant to inform next steps.
3. Boost 'Puzzle' Items Strategically
Puzzles are underrated gems—high margin, low recognition. Bring them to the spotlight with menu highlights, server suggestions, or photo displays. Watch them go from hidden profit to house favourite.
4. Optimize 'Plowhorses' for Profit
These popular items might be underpriced. Slightly adjust portion sizes or price by $1–2. Monitor how customers respond. Your POS will instantly show the impact on both margin and item sales velocity.
5. Phase Out 'Dogs'
Items that neither sell nor profit-cost income and confuse customers. Be ruthless—use your POS data to verify minimal or negative sales before removing them.
6. Redesign Your Menu Visually
Position your Stars and newly elevated Puzzles prominently. Use callouts, border boxes, or premium photos to draw attention to higher-margin dishes.
7. Review Quarterly
Track how changes perform over time. Does spotlighting improve Puzzle sales? Did Plowhorse pricing impact loyalty? Use your POS’s quarterly reporting to assess and iterate.
Final thoughts
Menu engineering transforms your biggest point of customer interaction into a profit tool. With clear POS insights and periodic reviews, you’ll build a leaner menu that delights diners and boosts your bottom line.