Sometimes the design of the menu card seems just deplorable. Menu is printed unclearly with errors and inaccuracies, and worst of all — contains the names of the dishes, which are no longer available. According to Murphy’s Law, the dish that ran out, but not deleted from the menu, will enjoy the greatest demand. This will primarily hamper the work of waiters, who will have to explain oneself before customers. Not a bad idea to write the menu on a blackboard, but in this case, you must carefully monitor its compliance with the presence of the dishes.
With the advent of computers in the daily menu card, you can easily make all sorts of changes. Changing the dish of special offers and updating date you show visitors the reasonableness of your approach to their nutrition. It makes an excellent impression.
Menu card can be issued hundreds of different ways. Ideally, you should find a compromise between elegance and practicality. Where cards are covered with plastic, they should be thoroughly cleaned, where they are written on paper without cases, they should not contain grease stains or any other dirt.
Verbal proposal
To maintain the special restaurant theatricality many restaurants adopted a system where waiters offer visitors a special selection of dishes not mentioned on the menu. Many customers are taking it with a sneer. They giggle when the waiter with a view of the tragic actor, like Gielgud pronouncing monologue of Mark Antony, seeks to draw their attention to any culinary masterpiece. They sympathized with a shy newcomer, who, carefully pronouncing unfamiliar words, offering them special choice.
Many customers immediately forget about all that the waiter told them, they’re just busy with their conversation in business, sex, and other topics. And many are already too drunk to receive additional information. The question is how effective is such a system offer? The answer to this question can only be obtained in the course of service. In such a case, isn’t it easier to update the menu on your computer every day, and then propagate on the printer? Or indicate special dishes on separate inserts attached to the standard menu?
Another approach to customer service that is used in some restaurants, and proposed by a number of psychologists and counselors — a representation of the waiter: «Good evening, my name is Chris, and I will serve you today.» This approach is completely discrediting itself if the steak is overcooked and the chicken and martinis from the bar have to wait for hours. Again, the final decision rests with the owner, but it seems to me that the private view of the attendants should be limited to the inscription on the back of the account: «Thank you, Susie.» Those personal contacts that are established between the client and sometimes attendants and transformed into friendship, love, career change, change of wills, etc., are entirely individual character, and they cannot be generalized.