Winter slump in your table occupancy? Here's how to generate more revenue from fewer reservations.
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Von Fabienne Van Den Broecke
2 min Lesezeit
Are the weeks after the holidays quiet for you too? You are not alone... Almost every hospitality business experiences this. Reservations drop, fixed costs remain. The only lever seems to be: a higher bill per guest. What if we told you that you could make this possible simply with a cleverly designed menu?
Decision moment = point of sale moment.
First and foremost: a menu guides choices. Finished the main course? Present a dessert menu! Even if your guests don't go for that delicious tiramisu, they will often still have a cup of tea or coffee. Experience remains crucial.
Menu testing without pressure
And besides... January is the perfect time to experiment. Try out different pricing strategies or make changes to your menu. This is the only way to find out what your customers are willing to spend their money on..
Menu cards with slide-in system: Your personalised menu card stays the same from the outside, but you can change the paper in seconds. The ideal way to try out your crazy idea for a night out. If it doesn't work, it doesn't hurt, right?
Step-by-step plan: increase your spending per guest in 5 days
Day 1: Conduct an ABC analysis of your dishes
A (top dishes): popular & good margin → in the spotlight.
B (building blocks): popular but lower margin → fine-tune price or portion size.
C (fillers): rarely ordered, margin okay → better placement or removal.
Day 2: Hero section at the top of your menu
Highlight three dishes from your A-class menu: Chef's Choice, Menu of the Month, Duo Deal.
Add a small footnote: ‘Our most popular dishes, and for good reason!’
Day 3: Up-sell at friction points
For main courses: suggest sauces, extra vegetables, or a matching drink. Consider adding a footnote such as ‘delicious with our own truffle sauce’.
For dessert: digestif trio or coffee special.
Day 4: Price psychology; layout
Anchor your dishes that you want to promote with one more expensive option per category.
Avoid € signs in a column and write prices after the name. This way, people are less concerned with the final total.
Use white space and icons (vegan, gluten-free) to speed up choices. People are visual creatures!
Day 5: Train the team (30 minutes)
Write three short sales pitches for each dish. Keep them as natural as possible, without pushing your customers too hard.
Try an accessible role-play exercise: everyone tries to sell a colleague one extra dish from the menu, on top of their initial order.
