Unique Menu Ideas for your Café or Restaurant

1) The Size of Your New Menu

The first place to look when thinking about the size of your menu is the kitchen. There's a major link between the two, as the size and setup of your kitchen will influence both the size and style of your menu.

That doesn't mean a micro-café can't offer a wide variety of items – on the contrary, some of the tiniest restaurant kitchens offer dozens of options on their menu. The secret is to hero a select few ingredients that can be utilised across multiple items, with the need to only use two or three different kitchen stations.

There's also the risk that so much choice will overwhelm your customers. You don't want confused – or stressed – diners. Instead, you'll want them to be guided by your menu and feel confident in their decision.

It's easy to think that a bigger selection of unique meals will bring in more customers, but you'll often end up paying for this on your food bill. A huge menu of complex items will mean you'll inevitably be tossing out food at the end of each night.

Also factor in your kitchen's capabilities. Do you have enough stations to offer grilled and sauteed dishes, salads and soups, plus baked goods?

2) Dish Choice and Seasonal Items

So what about the actual food? Sit down with your chefs and brainstorm a few different concepts to determine how your menu will play out. Ask a few different questions to really get the ideas percolating:

• What are the dishes that are close to your heart that you want to share with your loyal customers?
• What do you want those dishes to convey about your café or restaurant's culture?
• What stories do you want to tell through your food to build a community of happy diners?
• How can you use local products to create unique dishes that speak to a particular destination – whether that's the location of your restaurant, or the type of cuisine you are focusing on?

Sharing these stories among your team will not just help you define the ideal menu, but will build rapport with the people who are creating the food, which can inspire them to produce fantastic meals day in, day out.

3) List of Core Ingredients

There's no getting around the fact that developing the perfect menu takes time. There will be plenty of trial and error in order to get things 'just right'. That's why it's so important to understand your concept and your target market from the very start. From there, you can factor in the flavours, the dishes and the drinks that will get your customers excited.

Now is the time to collate the core ingredients that will deliver that 'wow factor' in your menu. In addition to the actual food and drink items, make sure you take into consideration how you will re-purpose raw ingredients to reduce food waste – and expenses.

A smart idea is to build your menu around seasonal ingredients every few months. Do your research on local suppliers and find out what you can source in bulk. Seasonal produce is not only cheaper, tastier and better for the environment, it's also a drawcard for diners who want a fresh and enjoyable experience.

During the colder months, for example, you might want to build your hero menu items around winter veggies. Depending on your location and what your suppliers are growing, these might include seasonal ingredients like beetroot, broccoli and broccolini, brown onions, brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots and cauliflower.

4) Menu Design

So, what about the physical menu? You've done all the hard work putting together a high-quality list of food and drink items – how can you best showcase them in the hands of your customers?

• Colour Scheme: Creating consistency throughout your signs, logo and menu will help provide a better experience for diners. Make sure your menu reflects the colours and style you want to convey for your restaurant or café. You can also use colours to highlight new items to enhance the presentation. You can even pair your menu's colour scheme with your plate patterns, such as ones you'll find in the Olympia Designs range.
• Spacing: You want customers to be able to read every item on your menu without struggling. Don't cram everything into one page if it looks too confusing – use spacing to highlight key sections and popular items. Take into account how people read things; learning about 'The Golden Triangle' can help with this.
• Layout: How do you want customers to read your menu? Should they see drink items first or last? Do you want to split up items across breakfast, lunch and dinner options? Where will you house your list of specials? A wall-mounted chalkboard within eye view of all your diners could be ideal for this.
• Font: The font of your menu may actually have more influence over your customers than you think. Do you want a warm font that gives them a sense of comfort, or are you looking for a sharper font that gives off an upmarket vibe?
• Symbols: A popular choice among higher-end restaurants is to remove the dollar symbol preceding the cash amount for each item. However, this may not be appropriate for local cafés.