How to Develop a Restaurant Menu

JOHN FOLEY: Menu development is a very, very complex element of the business. It depends on where you’re going to open your restaurant, your location—you certainly don’t want to duplicate the menu down the street. If you’ve never cooked the food and you’re not fond of the food, you certainly don’t want to serve it to your customers.

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Menu Development Factors:

-Owner Likes and Dislikes

-Demographics

-Chef’s Expertise

So it has to do with what your likes and dislikes are, what your demographics are going to want, if you have an idea for who the chef is going to be—it has to fit into his repertoire—you can’t hire a high-style French chef and have him cook breakfast, it won’t work. So the menu is really something that evolves over time in your design process, and then you come out and you decide that you want to do it because you either like it and your customers will like it, and that’s basically it.