Printing menus for your restaurant should be a thing of the past, and if it’s not, you might want to reconsider the advantages of digital. Over and above the cost of design and print, there is the added expense of cleaning and sanitizing.
You might think that guests expect to receive a menu and that browsing through a physical menu is part of the experience, but the truth is that covid has everyone super aware of what they touch, and removing any unnecessary contact will serve to make them more comfortable. In addition, dim lighting often plays a role in creating just the right atmosphere but at the same time could make it harder to read, especially for the elderly and those with visual impairment. Mobile devices, such as the one in your pocket ( or in your hand right now ) conveniently come with a back-lit screen for easy use in dark places and have carefully designed accessibility features that enlarge fonts for those who find it hard to see, for whatever reason.
So let’s say you choose to print once more. You call up your designer who does what he does, you send it off to the printers and a week later you take delivery of your new menu. Life is good, business is better and the compliments are the best. Suddenly, not so far forward, one of your suppliers lets you know that the price of chicken is up by 7%. It’s only been 3 weeks since you printed those beautiful new menus. Those same menus are now forcing you to either absorb a 7% loss on a third of your menu items or possibly reprint.
Just up the road, Joe the owner of Joe’s Bucket o’ Nuggets with 100% of his menu items containing chicken is facing the same price increase, and on top of that his halloumi delivery has been delayed and he is unable to produce four of his thirty menu items. Joe however has not broken a sweat. He keeps up with the times and makes use of new tech as it becomes available. When Joe took delivery of the more expensive chicken stock he immediately logged into his Digital Menu System and updated the prices of all his menu items. Furthermore, while he was logged in, he disabled all items containing halloumi until his delivery arrives, at which time he’ll simply enable them again not ever having to explain to customers why he is unable to produce items on his menu.
There are many more scenarios that we could go through but I think I’ve made my point. Investing in a digitized menu system offers savings very early on and continues to provide savings even when the time comes to redesign the look. Your menu is your website. It’s as simple as that. There are never outdated copies of your menu laying around to confuse anyone and the chances of a guest opening a menu to find a greasy fingerprint on page three or some cheesy garlic covering the price of the steak special is 0% guaranteed.