That Expensive Decoy Item Isn’t Meant to Be Ordered
Ever wondered why there’s always one ridiculously overpriced dish on every menu? Take Serendipity 3’s famous $69 hot dog – it’s not there because they expect you to order it. After introducing the hot dog, the sales of their cheeseburgers skyrocketed, making a seventeen-dollar cheeseburger suddenly seem reasonable.
This clever trick is called price anchoring, and it serves as a frame of reference for customers when making their decisions. Restaurant owners strategically place these premium-priced items to make everything else feel like a steal. If you see a $32 steak on a menu next to a $22 chicken dish, the latter will appear to be a good value for money even though it might not be the cheapest option overall.
Your Eyes Follow a Predictable Golden Triangle Pattern
When we look at a restaurant’s menu, our eyes typically move to the middle first before traveling to the top right corner and then, finally, to the top left. This has been dubbed the ‘Golden Triangle’ by menu engineers, and these three areas are where you’ll find the dishes with the highest profit margins.
Smart restaurants know exactly where your gaze will land first. Knowing these patterns can help you engineer your menu, because you can put daily specials or high-margin dishes in areas of the page where guests’ eyes are likely to land. The next time you’re browsing a menu, notice how the most expensive or specialty items seem to magically appear right where your eyes naturally go.
They’re Removing Dollar Signs to Make You Spend More
Here’s a sneaky one that might shock you: restaurants are deliberately removing currency symbols from their menus. Research suggests that removing the currency sign can encourage customers to spend up to 30% more because it makes prices appear friendlier and less expensive.
This psychological trick works because paying for a meal is the biggest pain point when dining out. Crafty restaurateurs remove currency signs from the restaurant menu design to take the emphasis away from the cost of the items you’re ordering. Instead of seeing “$15,” you just see “15” – suddenly that number feels less intimidating and more abstract.
The Rule of Seven Keeps You From Getting Overwhelmed
Have you ever felt paralyzed by too many choices? That’s exactly what restaurants are trying to avoid. The best menus account for the psychological theory known as the “paradox of choice,” which says that the more options we have, the more anxiety we feel. The golden number? Seven options per food category, tops.
When we include over seven items, a guest will be overwhelmed and confused, and when they get confused they’ll typically default to an item they’ve had before. Restaurants want you trying new things – preferably more expensive new things. The golden number for food options is 7 per category. Anything over seven items can ambush customers and lead to confusion, and confusion can cause them to revert to their “usual” by default instead of trying a new menu item.
Those Nostalgic Names Aren’t Accidents
When you see “Grandma’s Famous Meatloaf” or “Mom’s Apple Pie,” your heartstrings – and wallet – are being deliberately tugged. A popular psychological trick is to invoke feelings of nostalgia when naming an item on the menu. These emotional triggers work because “alluding to past time periods can trigger happy memories of family, tradition, and nationalism”.
As the saying goes, “nostalgia sells,” so restaurants utilize it to their advantage. You may see “Grandma’s Famous Meatloaf” and “Chef’s Childhood Favorite Mac & Cheese” on the menu, even when these dishes aren’t connected to whoever. Through attaching personal stories and family connections, diners would likely order them as they assume they’re made special. Mostly, they also have higher prices.
Colors Are Secretly Manipulating Your Appetite
The colors on restaurant menus aren’t chosen randomly – they’re strategic weapons designed to influence your behavior. The colors on a menu can affect what we order. Green implies the food is fresh, and orange stimulates the appetite. Yellow is a happy hue and is used to catch the diner’s attention. Red encourages action and is used to persuade us to buy the meals with the highest profit margins.
Bright colors, like red, yellow, and orange, have been shown to trigger appetite. Incorporating these colors into your menu could encourage hungry guests to order appetizers before their entrees, for example. The psychology runs deep – restaurants know that certain colors make you hungrier and more likely to order additional items.
Fancy Descriptive Words Jack Up the Price
Words like “line-caught,” “farm-raised,” “artisanal,” or “locally-sourced” aren’t just pretty descriptions – they’re profit boosters. Adjectives like “line-caught,” “farm-raised,” or “locally-sourced” are big turn-ons for customers. “These things all help increase perception of quality of the item,” Allen says.
Watch out for sensory languages: hand-cut, locally-sourced, and even herb-crusted. They’re more appealing than a simple “grilled fish vegetables.” They’re these descriptive adjectives and preparation methods are made to sound more valuable. Words can have an enormous impact in how a customer perceives a dining experience. Chocolate cake described as “Velvet Chocolate Cake” automatically increases desire for the item. This tactic is so effective that “Truth in Menu” laws designed to prevent restaurants from lying about things like how a piece of meat was raised or where it originated exist in many states.
You Only Get 109 Seconds to Decide
Since guests only spend an average of 109 seconds looking at your menu, it must be designed for guests to easily find key items aka scannable. That’s less than two minutes to make your entire meal decision! Restaurants design their menus knowing you’re working under this time pressure.
Restaurateurs want to grab guests’ attention with their high profit items. The research shows that customers are likely to order one of the first items that draw their attention. This time constraint means every design element – from font size to item placement – is strategically calculated to catch your eye before you move on.
Photo Placement Isn’t Random – It’s Strategic
Ever notice that only certain dishes have photos? That’s not because the chef ran out of budget for food photography. Although a well-photographed dish can whet the appetite, it’s important to limit the use of images. Menus with too many images are associated with low-end restaurants, which may curb customer spending. Studies reveal that having only one photo per page can increase sales by up to 30%. Based on this, you may want to preserve this image for your most expensive meal to nudge customers closer to the purchase.
Professional food photography is expensive, so restaurants choose wisely which dishes get the visual treatment. Professional food photography can make your menu come alive and leave your customers craving your dishes even before they take their first bite. Those mouth-watering images are strategically placed on the items with the highest profit margins, making them irresistible.
First and Last Items Get Special Treatment
The positioning of items within menu categories follows a specific psychological pattern. We subconsciously order the top two items in each menu section more often, so restaurant owners tend to list their highest-margin dishes first. However, some people tend to pick the bottom option, so the last item in each section is usually a restaurant’s third most cost-effective dish.
Within each category, the first few spots and the final spot receive higher attention levels. This means restaurants strategically place their most profitable items at the beginning and end of each section, while the middle items – which get less attention – might be the actual best values for customers who pay close attention.
The next time you sit down at a restaurant, remember you’re not just choosing a meal – you’re navigating a carefully constructed psychological landscape designed to influence every decision you make. These menu tricks have been refined over decades of research into human behavior, and they’re working on diners every single day. The question is: now that you know the game, will you play it differently?
