The Restaurant Industry According to Hollywood #25
Do you have a $5 shake on your menu? It may not be a shake, but you probably have a signature item that causes folks to return again and again. This scene from Pulp Fiction makes a central fact about consumer behavior clear: People are willing to pay a premium for quality. Think of a great hot dog joint that has a crazy dog for $8; it’s because people love whatever they’ve done to make it special they’re willing to pay that price.
These are the real heroes of our menus. Those items that sell well, have been around forever and are a part of your operational DNA. If you haven’t analyzed your menu lately, go through a POS report and see what items are killing the others and consider raising the price on that item. Most likely the item won’t see a blip in its popularity. However, if it does, you can institute a frequency reward around it to incentivize people to return. Either way, tweak those items to insure they are priced to the market. After all, you wouldn’t want to know later that your $5 shake is actually a $7 shake, would you?