Minimum Viable Menu Planning: A Tactical Guide

Times have been tough for restaurants since 2020. Lengthy restrictions on indoor dining and the slow rebound in consumer confidence caused US restaurants to fall short of $240 billion in sales. Restaurant closures reached 110,000 during the peak of the pandemic.

This year is a transition period for many of them. Numerous outlets are still not out of the crisis yet want to go back to business. To restore viability without collapsing, many restaurants are temporarily reducing their original menus into a “minimum viable product” or “minimum viable menu.”

Oversized, multi-page menus are now single-page or back-to-back menu cards. Others are foregoing the cost of menu reprinting and displaying digital menus on tablets. Customers are getting used to this, glad to revisit pre-pandemic favorites and support them with their business.

Understanding Minimum Viable Menus

A minimum viable menu is a compact version of your full menu offering only your top-selling or most profitable menu items.

Creating a minimum viable menu follows the same rules as menu engineering, which optimizes your menu based on relevant statistics and customer feedback. But the main objective of a minimum viable menu is to attract business with a compact menu—perhaps the shortest menu you’ve ever had.

A minimum viable menu also simplifies your operations. Fewer items shorten preparation time in the kitchen, especially if some of your current menu items are popular for takeout and delivery.

Offering a minimum viable menu is also beneficial if you prep your orders in a cloud kitchen and are trying to build a solid online ordering business. Since a cloud kitchen allows you to save costs on labor, equipment, utilities, and rent, a minimum viable menu will also reduce operational costs compared to a storefront operation.

Pivoting to a Minimum Viable Menu

The first step to building a minimum viable menu is deciding which items should stay and which ones should go.

Track which menu items sell and which ones do not. This will also help you determine the inventory items with the highest and lowest turnover rates. Decide on what items to include or exclude from your menu.

Changing your menu automatically affects your menu redesign. As we said earlier, customers are used to reduced menu items but still expect to see some bestsellers and favorites. Without those, you risk driving them away from your premises, website, or online ordering channels.

Let minimum viable menu planning do its job. Follow these seven steps to ensure the effectiveness of this plan.

1. Focus On Items You Can Offer for Takeout and Delivery

Restaurants focused on takeout and delivery managed to stay afloat during the pandemic. If these services attract business to your establishment, reduce or remove menu items that cannot be offered to-go. 

Choose items that can maintain their excellent quality and flavor even after transportation. And don’t forget to design and provide sturdy and secure food packaging for these items.

2. Prioritize Ingredients That Are in Reliable Supply

Sometimes, top-sellers pose problems in your inventory. They might contain ingredients that have become harder to restock since the pandemic.

More than 90% of restaurant operators experienced supply shortages and supply chain delays during the pandemic, affecting many key food and beverage items. To mitigate these challenges, find out which items in your inventory are in consistent, reliable supply.

Build a few new recipes or menu items from lower-cost, high-profit ingredients. Introduce them next to your bestselling items to keep orders coming in and satisfy your customers.

3. Watch Ingredient Costs

Changing your menu will impact your inventory management strategy. You will have to give strong priority to high-turnover over low-turnover items.

If you’ve modified the recipe of a particular menu item, update your recipe ingredients list as well as ingredient quantities in your inventory system. Keep an eye on ingredient costs, punching in the new prices as soon as they change. 

It may be wise to cut back on bulk orders if prices have increased.

4. Optimize Your Online Ordering Channels

Online ordering has been the lifeblood of many restaurants since the pandemic began. Take advantage of it to generate delivery sales from your current menu.

Setting up and managing an online ordering system is not hard if you have the right tools and technology. You can build your own website and buy a domain of your choice. Integrate your system with different food aggregators operating in your area, like Zomato, UberEats, and more. That way, you have better chances of reaching more customers and recouping your online investment.

Online ordering has accustomed people to digital menus. Digital menu ordering lets your customers take pleasure in the conveniences you provide with the service: customized orders, convenient payment options, timely delivery to their doorstep.

5. Customize Menu Options

Nothing delights customers more than the ability to personalize what they want to eat. A restaurant menu with custom options can help you increase sales without blowing up your costs.

Offer the option to add side dishes or modify customer orders. For example, if a customer orders spaghetti, they may choose to have it with garlic bread, extra tomato sauce, and no cheese. If someone wants a cup of coffee, they can get a double shot without cream or sugar.

These simple customizations improve the customer experience, even if your restaurant has temporarily limited its offerings.

6. Stay on Brand

Stay faithful to your brand’s personality and aesthetic, even if you’ve simplified your menu selection. Give your minimum viable menu a chance to work!

Retain the friendly, enticing descriptions. Use images of your most popular items.

Keeping restaurants properly staffed nowadays is another challenge, but it’s time to step up. Make your front of house team aware that the on-brand experience relies on them more than ever.

Ask them to master your revised menu and to relearn its contents when there is an update. They should be ready to describe every item as if they were talking to a first-time customer every time there is a query.

7. Test and Improve Your Menu

Evaluate your new menu’s performance. When your redesigned menu is released, get frequent input from your wait staff on how your customers’ ordering behaviors have changed. Ask customers for feedback on what they like and what they miss from your old menu.

Don’t hesitate to modify your menu every so often until your minimum viable menu seems to have served its purpose. The time will come when you can get ready to pivot back to your original menu, or a viable compromise that’s in between past and present. 

Don’t Let a Minimum Viable Menu Slow You Down

Downsizing your menu for a while doesn’t mean you’ve broken your promise to your customers. 

Your most important purpose as a restaurant is to serve food your customers love. And that’s exactly what you’re doing with a minimum viable menu.

Whether customers dine in or order online, an optimized, minimum viable menu protects your bottom line and projects a positive, going-back-to-business experience. 

Remember what brings customers to your restaurant. It’s the great food, service quality, and unique experience your restaurant offers.

Keep staying true to your mission, and your business will continue to stay winning as the dining scene recovers from these trying times.