Remember Paul Simon’s song, “Mother and Child Reunion”? According to Simon he “was eating in a Chinese restaurant downtown. There was a dish called Mother and Child Reunion. It’s chicken and eggs. And I said, I gotta use that one.”

Putting aside the popularity of the song, who would think to describe chicken and eggs as a Mother and Child Reunion?

Is What You Order Really Your Choice?

Smart restaurant owners and chefs use creative phrasing and mouthwatering descriptions to describe their food.  They’re using menu psychology to suggestively sell from their menu pages. They use design, placement, and words to direct your attention to key items on their menus so it’s more likely that you’ll notice, remember, and order what they’ve pointed you toward.

Sometimes they highlight their signature dishes, but mostly they want to get you to focus on their high profit margin items — the ones that make them the most money. They aren’t always the most expensive, but they are the most profitable.

There’s nothing wrong with ordering something that’s going to make money for a restaurant, but wouldn’t you like to feel that the selection is purely your choice rather than the restaurant’s?

Menus Target Both Your Stomach And Your Mind

A menu is targeted not just at your stomach, but also to your mind.

Gallup once reported that most people spend an average of 109 seconds reading a menu — a pretty short amount of time. Even if people take longer to really read it — after all, some menus are like encyclopedias — a menu’s design means more than a nice layout. It requires psychology and marketing, too.

It’s in the restaurant’s best interest to really pay attention to its menu – a redesign can improve sales by an average of 2 to 10% — which could mean a significant boost in income.

So, a descriptive phrase like “Mother and Child Reunion” is just one of many ways to influence your choice. The messages are often subliminal, but where menu items are placed, how graphics are used, the way the food and drink choices are described, and even the use of dollar signs — all send you directional signals.

The bottom line is that restaurants hope that their menus — a magical brew of prices; superlative or descriptive words; and varying fonts, sizes, and colors — will play with your brain cells and nudge you toward making the choices they would like you to make.

Do you eat out?  This is the second article in a series of consecutive posts about decoding restaurant menus. Keep checking back for more information that might help you with your restaurant choices.

The post Is What You Order In A Restaurant Really Your Choice? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

We often overlook the fact that restaurants are businesses and their income comes from what they sell to you. The money they make needs to cover their costs including the food they purchase, laundry and utility bills, rent, cleaning supplies, salaries, glasses, dishes, and so much more.

The Menu And The Mark-Up

The menu is the restaurant’s calling card and its main selling tool – it’s used to convince you to buy what the restaurant has to sell. The way a menu is arranged and how it looks and is written can make or break a restaurant.

The mark-up on the items on the menu is often between 350 and 400%. If the ingredients for a dish cost $3, the dish will probably end up being priced at about $12 — so dishes made with pricier ingredients will, in most cases, cost more.

But most restaurateurs are savvy and will adjust prices to what customers will pay. Most customers, for instance, won’t plunk down $50 for a 10 ounce steak, so menu items are balanced for profit and loss. A restaurant might lose money on steak by pricing it at a lower mark-up, but then make up for it with the mark-up on popular items with less costly ingredients — like pasta and pizza.

Think About What You Pay For Food In The Supermarket

To put things in perspective, think about how much you pay for food when you go grocery shopping. Pasta and rice cost very little, good steak and sushi grade fish cost a whole lot more. In a game of checks and balances that ultimately is reflected in the prices you see on the menu, good executive chefs monitor and leverage every product that comes through their doors.

Food that isn’t sold during earlier meals gets repurposed (ever wonder about the soup of the day, the stew, or the hash?). Good chefs can make those dishes sound delicious and taste wonderful – while, at the same time, marking them up and putting them on the menu as fabulous specials that sell out.

Do you eat out?  This is the first in a series of consecutive posts about decoding restaurant menus. Keep checking back for more information that might help you with your restaurant choices.

The post Some Good Things To Know About Restaurant Menus appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.