Why Expanding Your Menu Is Probably Killing Your Revenue

More choice does not always create more demand. Sometimes it just makes a business harder to understand and harder to buy from.

In this episode of Full Fat Marketing, Leonora breaks down why overloaded menus often weaken positioning, create decision friction, and quietly make brands less memorable and less profitable.

If you’ve ever wondered why some menus feel effortless and others feel chaotic, this episode will show you why clarity usually sells better than variety.

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And if you’re building a food, drink or hospitality brand and want help applying these strategies to your business, feel free to reach out at leonora@lrbcreative.com

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Disclaimer: Insights shared are based on Leonora’s experience with food and hospitality brands and are for educational purposes only. Results may vary.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Some menus are not menus. They are commitment issues with a drinks list attached to them. You sit down, you open it, and suddenly you're six pages deep in a laminated identity crisis. You've got paninis, pokeyballs, halloumi fries, Thai curry, three random tacos, and a protein smoothie all sitting on the same page. No one is steering the ship here. And then founders wonder why nothing feels memorable and nobody knows what they're actually known for. I find it such a red flag as well when your menu is long because there's no chance all those ingredients are fresh either. I'm Lenora and this is the Full Fat Marketing Podcast, where you'll hear the uncomfortable strategy truths for FB brands that most people won't tell you, but I will. Now I know why this happens. It usually starts super innocently. You think, let's just add a few more options then. People keep asking for this. Then we should probably have something for everyone. And before you know it, your menu looks like a catering company just had a panic attack. This is such a common hospitality problem and one that I hear all the time because on paper it sounds generous and really accommodating, but commercially, a lot of the time you're just making the whole business weaker and harder to buy from. More choice does not always make people more likely to buy. A lot of the time, it just makes the whole brand feel messier and less confident and slightly all over the place, which in customer terms is kind of like I'm not fully sure what this place is trying to be. And that is never a good place to be because the second a customer has to work too hard to actually understand you, you start losing them at that point. And this tends to hurt brands in three really specific ways. Number one, it makes you harder to understand. One of the biggest advantages you can have in hospitality is this people instantly know what to come to you for. And that is gold. You want people saying, oh, that's the place for X. That sentence matters so much more than people actually realize. The second your menu starts doing too much, that instant clarity sort of really disappears. Once that disappears, so does the memorability of it as well. Now you're not the place for something, you're the place that does a lot of stuff, and those are really different places to be. And you really just want to be in one, not the other. So many menus lose their power because of this. And they almost make the customer feel like they're doing mental admin. It's really not a vibe. And number two, it creates decision friction. Customers hate friction way more than founders realize. People don't want to stand there mentally comparing the Shakshuka to the acel, to the Korean chicken wrap and the burrata salad that clearly has no business at all being there. It's really not a nice, pleasant buying experience. As I said, it's mental admin. And nobody wants admin when they're hungry or hungover or in a massive rush, or with someone who says the worst sentence on planet Earth, I don't mind you choose, which by the way, should be a criminal offense. Now, this is one of the biggest things founders underestimate. Customers don't want to make more decisions. They want easier ones. That is the real difference here. That's where a lot of menus accidentally become harder to buy from because there's just too much for the brain to process. And number three, it usually weakens the process. This is the bit people really don't like hearing. When a menu tries to be everything, the kitchen usually ends up being too stretch, operations get messier, prep gets messier, they end up being for no one, right? It's almost like the same sort of thing with social media. If you're trying to speak to everyone, you're going to speak to no one. And I say that to clients all the time, and the same thing applies here. And the thing is, all of that eventually shows up in customer experience as well. And if you're like me and you just see it as a red flag in terms of what is happening in the kitchen, when your menu is trying to literally do everything, it becomes so much harder for any one singular dish to become signature. And signature is where a lot of the money lives. One of the strongest things a food brand can do is remove decisions, not actually add to them. And that's one of the reasons why some of the smartest brands feel so easy to buy from. They don't make the customer work, they actually guide them in the right direction. And that's really the job of the brand. And then you should not feel like, oh, good luck in there. You have fun trying to suss it out. It should feel like, okay, you're in really good hands and we're going to look after you. And that's a really different shift. And honestly, you can feel that instantly as soon as you sit down somewhere. And this is where I think a lot of founders accidentally confuse abundance with really sharp strength. They think the more we offer, the more valuable we seem. Not necessarily. Sometimes more options just make the whole business feel less sure of itself. Now, if you're a founder, cafe owner, operator, or marketing manager listening to this, here's the practical takeaway from this episode. Go and look at your menu and ask yourself a very uncomfortable question. What on here is genuinely helping us grow? And what is just sitting there making us slower, messier, and harder to understand? A lot of menus are carrying dead weight. It's not strengthening the brand. It's not making the menu clearer, and it's not making the kitchen any faster. It's not helping you become known for that specific thing. It's just there. And just there is just not a good enough reason to keep something. So I'd ask three things. First, what are we actually known for right now? Second, which items are creating decision friction without adding real value? In other words, what is on here that is making the menu feel bigger but not better? And third, if we cut the weakest 20% of this menu, what would instantly become clearer or easier? That one solution alone can make the whole business feel 10 times stronger and honestly more profitable too, which is the key factor in this. And the practical move after this episode is really simple. Take your menu and highlight what sells well, what makes money, what people come back for, and what actually strengthens what you want to become known for. Then circle everything else and be really ruthless because every item on your menu should be doing a job and fulfilling that job. And if it's not helping you sell more clearly, earn more cleanly, or become more memorable, it needs to go. And yes, it can be mildly traumatic, especially if you've become really emotionally attached to a menu, but so is running a menu that nobody really remembers. And remember, it's the customer first, not what you think the customer wants. I know that it may seem like there's an overlap to them, but they are entirely different things. And I'll do a whole episode on this as well. But tomorrow, I want to talk about a brand that understood something very clever about friction and somehow made waiting in line feel like reassurance instead of a problem, which is honestly really annoying, but really smart as well, and you'll understand why. And that right there is the full fat version. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, you can listen to the Full Fat Marketing Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, with new bite size episodes releasing daily from Monday to Friday. You can mite me later for that. Oh, and if you're enjoying the podcast, I'd really love it if you left a review, as it really helps more people find it. Thank you, and I'll see you tomorrow.