6 Ways Lounge Cafe Bars Delivered Growth Through Smart Menu Design

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 Lounge Cafe Bars have been delivering growth through smart menu design.

Episode highlights:

Cross-selling

"The thing they do very effectively is cross-selling. The first thing you see is that tons of dishes are listed. Generally you're going to order a main of some sort, whether it's a burger sandwich or a main course. You really want to drive that average check up by adding a side or having some nibbles on the table at the top of the menu."

Volume discount pricing

"Something very compelling going on with the House section in particular, which is around the pricing. It's 4.95 for just one house dish, but you can have three of them for 13.25. So its really easy to calculate the clear straight-up saving for the consumer, where they can choose to have all of those three, which is really good for groups and sharing."

Driving promotions

"What they've done very intelligently is they have identified that you might be coming in at a certain time of the week, where maybe it's a traditionally less busy times. So they're showing you time-based promotions, specific to that menu category, but they're also priming people for the next time they might visit to think, 'if I came in on that Tuesday lunchtime, I might be able to get this promotion here.' "

Price tiering

"If you go on their website, they ask you to select the location that you're dining at. And the reason for that is, there are actually different prices, depending on the location that you go to, but for the same offering."

BOH complexity & execution

"There's about 70 menu items. That will be a lot more complicated to execute on, than if you've only got 20 menu items and doing dinner service. But they've created an all occasion menu. There's something for everyone at any time of the day, any time of the week."

"In terms of optimizing labor costs for this restaurant, it's really more about volume and getting people through the doors as frequently as possible, placing these restaurants primarily on high streets as well."

Designing a menu for every meal occasion

"They cater to the guests who might say, 'I want somewhere for breakfast.' Or 'I've got a quick business lunch.',  'I want to have brunch with my buddies on the weekend.'etc. All of those occasions are catered for in this menu, and that's really brilliant, because it means they can be at higher capacities all the way through the day, and are always top of mind for people because they're trying you out at different times of the week and different times of day."

Thanks for watching.