Does the menu matter ?

Have a look at some of the pictures I took while having dinner at Pizzahut on Sunday evening.





The pictures make everything worth eating and drinking. Drinks for example - under normal circumstance if everything is only written without any pictures then very few would really want to wander out of the normal Coke and Pepsi. But, when you open the menu and find a 15*10 cm picture of a refreshingly green "apple coolers.." it becomes tempting enough to try at least once.

Now lets look at what this could to the business. We as a group could have ordered a pitcher of Pepsi, which would have cost us Rs 90. But highly tempted by the pictures 2 of us ordered apple coolers and 3 ordered "masala lime" each costing 45 resulting into a total splash of Rs 225 only on drinks. That is 2.5 times what otherwise would have been.
Assuming that 1 of every 2 tables order drinks and 1 out of 5 such drink ordering tables is impressed by the pictures and makes an experiment, that would mean an increase of revenue from Rs 900 to 1035(vague approximation of all tables ordering same). This is 15% more!!!

The same goes for pizzas that we ordered.

15% more revenues for designing and redoing the menu once in every 6 months and including new and fresh pictures. I think the menu does matter!!

The bottom line for a restaurant is, pictures in the menu can definitely add value. But, remember it raises expectations at the same time and so living up to expectations is more important and difficult than creating those very expectations.

This is a practice seldom followed in Indian eateries, which I think is worth
spending some time and money in order to reap benefits from the visual impact.