The Menu Nobody Has Read In Two Years
Most venue menus are an accumulation, not a decision. Which items are earning, which are anchoring, which are quietly costing you, and the one afternoon of counting that separates them.
Items get added. Almost nothing gets removed.
After a few years the list is long, three of the items account for most of what sells, and nobody can say what the rest are for.
That is not a menu. It is a sediment.
The four kinds of item
Every line falls into one of four boxes, and the boxes need different decisions.
Sells a lot, good margin. Protect these. Know exactly what they cost you and check that quarterly, because a supplier increase here does more damage than anywhere else.
Sells a lot, poor margin. The dangerous one. Volume disguises it — the item looks successful because it moves. Either the price is wrong or the cost has drifted since it was set.
Sells little, good margin. Not a problem, and frequently doing a job that has nothing to do with its own sales — see anchoring, below.
Sells little, poor margin. These are the ones to remove, and they are usually the ones people defend most fiercely.
The counting
An afternoon, once. For each item: units sold last quarter, and margin per unit.
Plot them into the four boxes. In most venues the fourth box is larger than anyone expected, and half of it is items somebody added for a specific occasion that ended.
⚠️ Do this on units, not revenue. A high-price item selling rarely looks impressive by revenue and tells you nothing about whether it is working.
Why removing is harder than it looks
Two reasons to be careful, and one reason to do it anyway.
Some items anchor. The most expensive bottle may sell twice a year and still be doing its job — it makes everything below it look reasonable. Removing it does not move those sales to the next item down; it moves the whole perception of your pricing. Judge anchors by what sits below them, not by their own sales.
Some items belong to somebody. A regular's drink, a cast member's usual. Removing it is a small insult with a disproportionate effect.
But a long list has a real cost: slower ordering, more mistakes, more stock held, more things to count, and a guest who takes longer to decide. The cost is spread across every night and therefore invisible, which is why it never gets addressed.
The safer move than removing
Stop listing it. Keep making it.
An item off the printed list but still available covers the regular who orders it, removes the choice burden, and reduces nothing you actually hold. Most of what should leave a menu can leave this way with no conversation at all.
What to add instead
Almost every venue's list is missing the same thing: something between the cheapest and the most expensive that is easy to say yes to.
The gap is usually in the middle. Guests who will not order the cheapest and are not ready for the top have nothing designed for them, and they default down.
⚠️ The middle is where the volume is, and it is the part that gets designed last.
The seasonal trap
A limited item that stayed. It was for an occasion, the occasion ended, and it is still on the list two years later because removing things requires a decision and adding them does not.
The check: does every item on the list have a reason someone can state in one sentence? The ones that fail are your fourth box, and they got there by inertia rather than by choice.
It is not read because it cannot be chosen from
Too many items people stop reading
And then choose the usual thing, or the safest thing
⚠️ Adding items reduces the number of items that get chosen, which is the opposite of what adding is intended to do.
Four kinds, and only one is safe to cut
Sells often
Sells occasionally
Does not sell but is asked for
Does not sell and is not asked for
⚠️ Cutting the third leaves you unable to answer a question you get regularly. ⇒ This is the category that volume alone cannot identify.
Count people, not revenue
Revenue per item one expensive order looks like demand
People per item shows that nobody is choosing it
⚠️ A high-priced item can carry its own revenue line with a single customer. ⇒ Headcount is the number that tells you whether it is on the menu for anybody.
Move it before you remove it
Removing cannot be undone quickly
Demoting smaller, further down, and see what happens
⚠️ If demoting it stops the sales, removing it is safe. ⇒ If nothing changes, the problem was never its position, and you have learned that without losing anything.
Add ease of choosing, not items
A new item lengthens the list
One recommendation shortens the decision
⚠️ A single "if you cannot decide" line changes what gets ordered without adding anything to the menu.
Decide the removal date when you add
Added each season and never removed at the end of it
⚠️ Three years of that doubles the list. ⇒ Decide the removal date at the moment you add it. An addition with no end date is a permanent addition.
Three to hold
Units sold per item, last quarter. The half of the picture most venues have.
Margin per unit. The half most do not, and the one that changes the answer.
Number of items nobody can explain. Count it once. It is uncomfortable and it is the fastest route to a shorter list.
Where the record has to sit
Units are in the till and margins are on invoices, which is why the two are never on the same page and the menu never gets reviewed.
tasteck keeps sales against the cost basis you set, so the four boxes are a sort rather than an afternoon with two spreadsheets.
Nobody decided on this menu. It arrived one addition at a time, and none of them was ever reconsidered.
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