6 Ways Aba Restaurant's Menu Design Reflects Their Premium Brand Positioning

The Menu Mix is a regular podcast that takes a look at looking at leading restaurant groups to reveal the techniques and considerations behind the way they design their menus and run their businesses. Subscribe on YouTube to follow.

In this episode George Wetz (CEO) and Matt Holy (Director of Strategic Projects) discuss how Aba has delivered growth through smart menu engineering.

Episode highlights:

High End Menu Layout

"Compared to a couple of the other menus that we've looked at thus far, you'll see this one is a lot cleaner. There's no use of color, it's just black and white and sleek, it's definitely higher end, it evokes luxury."

Pricing Format

"Every single menu item on this menu ends in the number 95. 95, 95, 95 everywhere. So they're bringing in the psychology of being just under the dollar, while not doing the 99." 

Dessert Considerations

"There's a lot of fresh ingredients and a lot of unusual ingredients. And that's really shone through in the dessert section. So whilst yes, you do have your chocolate cake, which is what I would order on the menu, if you look at the other items, they've all at least got the perception of being lower calorie a bit lighter."

Beverage List Premiumization

"We're going to be looking at the drinks menu of Aba because it's really interesting. They've not only got some interesting elements around the different categories on the menu and the reasons behind that, but also how they've done premiumization of certain products there as well. So first thing I want to call out is, this is a booklet styled as you might expect, but when you get straight into it, the first section you actually see is zero proof cocktails." 

"Really interesting. This is speaking to health conscious, or the growing trend in people who are not drinking alcohol, particularly younger generations, Gen Z. There's a overall decrease in the amount of people drinking alcohol out every single time. So I think it's increasingly important for restaurants to be considering what the adult style drinks that are nonalcoholic are." 

Highlighting Producers In Your Menu

"The way they break their wine list out is by ancient world. Not the old world, which is France, Italy, Spain, Germany and then New World, which is the U.S, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, etc.. The are calling out ancient civilizations. The oldest wine producers in the world actually aren't from the biggest producing countries. They are really these Mediterranean countries, like Lebanon, like Greece, like Israel."

Thanks for watching.