The Psychology of Menu Design: A Bar Owner's Guide to Profitable Cocktail Menus

Is your menu secretly sabotaging your profits?

Many bar owners waste valuable menu real estate on items guests already know they want, while missing opportunities to showcase high-profit signature items that could dramatically increase sales.

In today's episode:

• Learn strategic menu placement techniques that boost profits
• Discover how to use psychology to influence ordering behavior
• Master the art of writing compelling drink descriptions

Listen now to transform your menu from a simple list into a powerful sales tool.

Learn More:
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The Bar Business Podcast Website
Chris' Book 'How to Make Top-Shelf Profits in the Bar Business'

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A podcast for bar, pub, tavern, nightclub, and restaurant owners, managers, and hospitality professionals, covering essential topics like bar inventory, marketing strategies, restaurant financials, and hospitality profits to help increase b...

Transcript

Chris Schneider (00:01.624)
Today, discover why the classic cocktails on your menu are actually wasting space, the psychology behind guest ordering decisions, and learn how to use visual hierarchy to guide guest purchases.

So today we're going to explore how thoughtfully designing your cocktail menu can significantly impact your bar's profitability by understanding guest psychology and strategic item placement. Now we've talked about menu design a lot before, and this is a shortened version. mean, all of this, I think we've said in other episodes, but this is a short, concise version here just to hammer in on some of the key points with menu design because I think it is absolutely imperative in this business to be successful.

that you have good menu design, that you understand your menu design, and that you are constantly working on your menu design. So many bars waste valuable menu space on obvious items while missing opportunities to showcase profitable signature items. We put things in the wrong spots. We set up our menus in a way that is going to sell things that we have lower margins on and not sell things we have higher margins on.

The obvious thing here is we have to be strategic about our menu design. And we have to base that on human psychology and guest buying behavior.

So let's dive in here. We're going to start talking about what is menu psychology. So menu psychology is how people choose what they want to order. And you'll hear all the time when we're talking about food, especially people eat with their eyes first. Well, people also drink with their eyes first, but before they eat or drink, they order with their eyes first. What is appealing for them on a menu?

Chris Schneider (01:50.582)
is appealing to them to order.

Now you should always have a menu that is very visually appealing. Now visually appealing does not mean necessarily a lot of graphics, a lot of pictures, a lot of stuff going on. Some of the most simple menus can be some of the most elegant menus and are the most visually appealing menus. So don't worry about limiting yourself.

When I say make a visually appealing menu to having pictures or anything else, it can be anything. But whatever you do has to be visually appealing. It has to fit in with the design aesthetic of your bar. Right, this goes back to the cohesive concept thing that we talk about all the time. Everything in your bar must tie together, so your menu must fit in cohesively. It must have that same visual appeal, the same feeling, the same emotions that it invokes in the guest should be the same that your bar invokes in the guest.

Now one way that a lot of people trying to make menus visually appealing is they put in a lot of pictures. And pictures can be great pictures done properly can do wonderful things and I'm all for. Outlines of glasses icons all sorts of stuff like that, but when you get to actually color pictures. You gotta be a little bit careful, cause they can seem cheap. Right color pictures make me think Greek diner. And most bars don't want to be Greek diner, so I probably don't want to put color pictures on there.

or a big chain restaurant. Don't want to be a big chain restaurant. So be careful about how you use pictures, but don't be afraid to use images, outlines, line drawings, things of that nature to add to the visual appeal of your menu. Now, the other thing that we really need to focus on here is that menu placement affects ordering. People do not read left to right, top to bottom. And the way our eyes scan a page.

Chris Schneider (03:42.484)
is always going to be a little bit different, but there's some science here that can help us understand where to place things if we want people to order them.

And the main thing is the top two spots in a column and the bottom spot in a column will always get more orders. And if I may not have this exactly right, and different studies are going to show different things, but I always go top is my number one thing I want ordered, bottom is number two, second from the top is number three. So I kind go one, two, three. That's how I organize menus when I write them, and it seems to work pretty well.

Everything in between that so if you have ten items the seven that are under the top two, but below the bottom one They're not gonna get ordered as much That's a great place to put really good items that you want to have on the menu that maybe you don't have the same margin on Or items that are fan favorites, but you're not trying to push Those top two and that bottom item though should always be The items you want to order the items where you have the best margin the items where you know You have the best product and margin ideally

If we think about menu engineering, these should be our stars, things that have a great gross margin and have great customer popularity.

Now, as we're thinking about spots, what is the number one best spot on a menu? That is the top right.

Chris Schneider (05:08.75)
You think it's top left, it's not. Some studies say top left. I have said top left before because there are studies that say that. But the more and more I dig into this stuff, top right. Top right is your key spot. So that top right spot on the menu, whether it's landscape, portrait, however you're looking at it, or even within a section of the menu, top right is the place that is going to get the most attention. Now with menus, one thing to also keep in mind is we don't want to overuse adjectives.

We can just list ingredients. A lot of people do that nowadays. It's a very modern way to display a menu. But we don't want to overuse our adjectives. We don't want to be too narrative in how we describe our menu items. Minimalist, but give the needed info. Now, where you flip that is, yeah, you want to be minimalist most of the time. But when you have a minimalist descriptions and then you have one that's a little bit longer, right? Say most your

You have columns on your menu. Most of your item descriptions are a line or two, and then you have one that's four. That's going to draw eyes and sales. So if you want something mid-column to draw eyes and sales, make your description a little bit longer. It can work. The last thing about menu psychology, and this is absolutely huge, if you do not want people to order things based on the price, hide those prices. Do not use dollar signs. Do not use decimal places if you can avoid it. Just put everything on the dollar. Write two numbers. Call it a day.

or a number, call it an A. If you use decimal places and you're doing everything on the 50 cents, do .5, not .50. Hide prices as much as people so people purchase based on what they want, not based on what they want to pay for.

So now all that explains to you guys how to showcase your signature items, your house specialties, where that prime menu real estate is. But what's the number one mistake? It's not any of these things that I see that are the number one mistake I see people make. The number one mistake I see people make is wasting valuable space on shit customers are already going to order.

Chris Schneider (07:15.118)
What do mean by that? Well, your classic cocktails, your old-fashioned, your Manhattan, even an espresso martini, if it's not particularly interesting or special, just a standard espresso martini, or just a vodka martini or gin martini.

Anything that is just kind of run-of-the-mill boring. I we could even argue ranch water or...

Chris Schneider (07:44.568)
a margarita, or even a daiquiri can fall on that list of they're kind of classic cocktails. If people want them, they're going to order them.

Now obviously if you're doing something different, if you have a special take on a classic cocktail, absolutely that should be on your cocktail list. But if I go to a bar and somebody hands me a cocktail list and it's martini, martini, espresso martini, old fashioned Manhattan, daiquiri rocks, I'm gonna go, okay, so you just kind of wrote down classic cocktails and there's nothing interesting here. It's not engaging me to purchase.

It's a waste of their time to print it and a waste of my time to read it because if I wanted to order one those things, I would just order them.

So don't waste space on items you don't need to waste space on, but absolutely include cocktails on your cocktail menu if you're doing something different with them, if you're using special liquors, or even just to showcase things because you had the space and you'll want to.

but don't think classic cocktails are requirement on your cocktail menu. So to wrap us all up for today, your menu is more than just a list of drinks. It is a powerful tool for driving profits when designed with intention. By understanding the psychology of how people read your menus, and then the strategic item placement that comes from that, and how to make compelling descriptions, you can transform your menu into an effective sales tool that enhances both

Chris Schneider (09:15.968)
your guest experience and your bottom line.