You or your servers should not have to spend time explaining things about the meals that you serve. Your menu should be descriptive. It should have photos of your foods. It should be clearly understood.
Perusing your menu and selecting foods should be a pleasant, relaxing experience for your patrons. Please make sure to present them with a menu that they will not be confused by.
Your menu should have beautiful photographs of your food. It is not necessary to have photos of all of your food, but you should have photos of specials and favorites.
Gift CertificatesIf you do not have professional looking restaurant gift certificates available and offered by each server at the end of their meal, you are missing out. Many a harried shopper at this busy season may just buy a few.
For the Server to say:
Did you enjoy your visit? The food? Would you like your friends and family to know about it?
How would you like to give them a gift certificate that costs you $10 but is worth $15 for them? (This is much like having them use a coupon. You still get money, and they are motivated to buy now!)
Advantages of Gift Certificate to eat at your place:
Give them the gift of relaxing and enjoying a wonderful meal when they need a break from life.
Give them something that won't collect dust, take up space in their home, call for maintenance, or break down.
I am a parent of 3 small children.I seek after Child -friendly restaurants. The following are my tips for you. If you want to appeal to the parents who have young children, you will need crayons and an activity sheet connected to your photocopied, black and white childrens' menu.
Make sure your restrooms are equipped with a changing table and are easy for small children to use. Make your restaurants clean. Have a door or gate to the kitchen that is closed so that curious children cannot run in.
You should have disposable dinnerware just for kids. I am always afraid of my kids breaking things. I also confess, I like taking the plastic cups home to re-use. This is a great advertising opportunity.
You will need "booster seats" and high chairs readily available. The servers need to be able to access them easily for your restaurant patrons upon request.
You may want to give out balloons to the kids, and you'll want to have a "birthday club they can join." You can send them a post card saying, "Happy Birthday! Come in for a free dessert on us!" Their parents will come along for the visit, and will probably order meals.
Coupons in the mail or the paper are things my husband and I use very often to determine where to go to eat. We almost never try a new, unfamiliar restaurant unless there is a good motivation to do so.
We often go to places that we know we can find a coupon for. I will remember that I have seen a coupon in the phone book, clipped a coupon from the paper, or saved a mailed coupon, and I will suggest that we go there to eat. Buy one meal, get one free deals are the best ones. The buy one, get one half off meals are not usually worth saving.
My brother told me about a mexican restaurant that was sending him $10 gift certificates for eating at their place. I immediately got online to sign up for this great thing! This restaurant is smart. They send out monthly newsletters to everyone who has signed up on their mailing list. This monthly newsletter encourages more frequent visits by sending out coupons or gift certificates, having quiz contests and specials relating to the month.