Menu Engineering
What is menu engineering?
Direct answer
Menu engineering is the process of ranking menu items by popularity and contribution margin, then classifying them as Stars, Plowhorses, Puzzles, or Dogs so operators know what to promote, reprice, rework, or remove.
Key points
- Stars are popular and high-margin; protect and promote them.
- Plowhorses are popular but low-margin; reprice or reduce cost carefully.
- Dogs are low-popularity and low-margin; remove or radically rework them.
What to do next
- 1Calculate contribution margin for every item.
- 2Rank item popularity within each menu category.
- 3Place each item into the matrix and assign a specific action.