Special menus are common in any type of restaurant, from fast-food chains to upscale, fine-dining establishments. They are designed to be a restaurant’s most iconic dishes, with the power to attract customers across multiple geographic areas.
But if your regular menu already drives enough business, why should you bother creating specials?
Special menus allow your chef to showcase their creativity and give your restaurant something new to boast. The menu items don’t have to be original; they can be as familiar as a burger or pancake, but with distinct flavors only your chef can create. A special menu, after all, isn’t meant to change your offers, but to elevate them and enhance your brand.
Additionally, it is a great way to show appreciation for your regular customers because you can design the items based on their favorites, but made even more delectable thanks to your chef’s expertise.
That said, let’s go deeper into special menus and how to create them the right way.
Understanding Restaurant Specials
Specials are menu items that are only available within a given period. They come in different types, such as:
- Seasonal specials – menu items that correspond to the current season
- Happy Hour specials – menu items offered after office hours (5-7 PM) that usually include alcoholic beverages
- Limited-time specials – similar to seasonal specials but aren’t related to the current season.
- Meal specials – special breakfast, lunch, or dinner menu items that don’t appear on the regular menu but on boards or separate menu cards instead
- Weekly specials – special menu items offered weekly, usually with reduced prices
- Fixed price specials – limited menu items from set courses diners can use to “build their own meals”
- Du Jour menu – a menu item that a chef has prepared for the day (e.g., soup of the day)
Offering a special menu opens up opportunities for conversations, verbal or online. A delighted customer may tell one of your servers to send their regards to the chef because they enjoyed their meal so much. Such feedback is one of the most trustworthy sources of information for determining your special menu’s performance. You may also find blogs or social media posts about your specials, where users share their honest thoughts about the dishes and whether they would recommend them or not.
Crafting a Special Menu
If you want your restaurant to be the next talk of the town, creating specials may just be the trick.
There is no fixed formula for crafting restaurant specials, but taking these factors into consideration will help you and your chefs come up with the right items:
1. Identify the Specials That Suit Your Brand
Not all types of special menus suit every restaurant. For example, a Happy Hour menu may look out of place in a fast food restaurant, even if they attract a high volume of customers after working hours on a Friday. Fast food chains are usually family-friendly establishments, so it’s not the best place for serving alcoholic beverages.
A Happy Hour menu would be more appropriate in a casual dining restaurant or tavern. Seasonal, meal specials, weekly specials, and limited-time specials also suit these businesses. If your restaurant is on a higher scale but not the same level as a formal fine dining restaurant, say, a buffet or romantic restaurant, you can offer a Du Jour menu or fixed price specials.
When you create your specials, make sure they won’t cheapen or elevate your brand so much that it’ll lose its identity. Work it around what your customers already want, so that they won’t be intimidated or put off by the items.
2. Perform Ingredient Costing
Calculate your food costs before deciding on your specials. If your food costs take up a significant portion of your sales and leave little room for profit, creating specials around your existing inventory may be a cost-effective decision. You can increase the profit margin of each dish and boost your bottom line.
One way to save on ingredient costs is to opt for seasonal specials. You can grab fresh produce for less that way. You don’t even have to buy too much, because your chef would know how to make special dishes with only a handful of ingredients. They can experiment with exotic spices to give them unique flavors.
3. Determine the Right Time to Offer Specials
You don’t have to offer specials every new season or every day. Offering specials at carefully selected times helps ensure that you can serve the dishes in their best quality possible. A few perfect dishes can give you more sales than numerous items that don’t feel or taste special at all.
A good time to offer specials is during slow hours or days. Many restaurant owners have noted that Mondays and Tuesdays are their slowest days, so if this is also the case in your restaurant, maybe offering brunch specials can fill those sluggish days.
You can also launch specials during Hallmark holidays, national holidays, or religious holidays. It may effectively boost your restaurant’s foot traffic or online order volume.
However, look at your numbers first before deciding on a specific time period to launch specials. They can provide the most accurate data regarding sales at any date and time range.
4. Name Your Special Menu
Using a name like “House Specials” may be straightforward and thus easy to remember, but chances are other restaurants call their specials the same. We’ve mentioned that specials aren’t always about originality, but it may take an original name for your specials to catch attention and be more identifiable.
As with choosing a restaurant name, pick a name that suits your brand and cuisine. If possible, make the name evoke emotions or spark curiosity as well. For example, suppose you’re a family-owned restaurant, and most of your dishes are inspired by your grandmother’s recipes. You can offer a special menu with your grandmother’s original recipes and name it something that reminds you of your childhood but also connects with your customers. You may also share the story behind the menu to make it even more special.
5. Promote Your Specials
Create marketing campaigns for your specials, and identify the right channels to launch them on. If you have pages on popular social media apps, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and WhatsApp, study your analytics to determine your content’s performance. Launch your promotional content when your followers are most active and willing to engage with your posts.
If you have an online ordering app or website, place a promotional collateral of your specials on the homepage or at the very top of the app’s screen so it will be the first thing customers see.
Inside your premises, you can promote your specials by installing wall posters or putting up chalkboard signs. Use menu engineering to determine where to place the menu itself, such as on the first page of your regular menu, or a separate menu card or booklet to create a clearer distinction between the two menus.
If you operate a fast food or fast-casual restaurant, displaying your specials’ ads on a Customer Display Screen (CDS) may be a clever tactic. It can urge customers to add some special menu items to their orders just before they pay.
Finally, no matter the restaurant concept you run, SMS or email marketing campaigns can generate results. You can use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to streamline your marketing communications.
Bonus Hack: Use Restaurant Technology to Determine the Right Specials
Creating a special menu requires checking your inventory and various financial and marketing reports. These tasks can take time when done manually, potentially affecting the timing of your special menu’s launching.
Consider investing in restaurant technology to complete these tasks in no time. An inventory management system can perform digital stock takes for you, while a business dashboard can show real-time restaurant updates, helping you identify top-sellers and slow hours.
If you don’t see a special potential for any particular menu item, don’t fret. Sometimes, letting your chef take charge and follow their instincts is the secret to crafting your most iconic dishes yet.