Stars in my soup, designing the perfect restaurant menu

posted by John Lampard on Tuesday, 15 December, 2009 to the design and art subset

The layout and design of restaurant and cafe menus, including the use of typography, can greatly influence diners when it comes to selecting what to order, according to US author William Poundstone.

Puzzles, anchors, stars, and plowhorses; those are a few of the terms consultants now use when assembling a menu (which is as much an advertisement as anything else). “A star is a popular, high-profit item – in other words, an item for which customers are willing to pay a good deal more than it costs to make,” Poundstone explains. “A puzzle is high-profit but unpopular; a plowhorse is the opposite, popular yet unprofitable. Consultants try to turn puzzles into stars, nudge customers away from plowhorses, and convince everyone that the prices on the menu are more reasonable than they look.”

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