Your takeout menu is a cost-effective method of advertising your restaurant to new and existing customers. Capitalize on the opportunity to tantalize consumers with a tempting presentation of your tastiest treats when they are already thinking of where and what to eat. A takeout menu is more than just a price list. An attractive takeout-menu design helps diners remember all the things they love about your restaurant: great food, good prices, outstanding quality and service.
Gathering Information
Identify your top competitors. If possible, get a takeout menu from each restaurant. Study the menu designs. What do you think the competition did right? What could they have done better? Start collecting the information needed for your takeout menu, such as a digital file of your restaurant's logo. Ideally, the logo should be an encapsulated postscript file (EPS) or a tagged image file format (TIFF), 300 dots per inch (DPI) resolution. If a digital file is not available, you can ask the printer to scan your printed logo design---just make sure you have a good, clean copy.
Other information that you will need for the menu is your telephone number, location, driving map (optional), street address, business hours, whether credit cards are accepted and home delivery information (if applicable). Consider including a photo of the restaurant, the friendly staff or a plate of your best-selling food item. The next step is deciding which foods to include on your takeout menu.
Think It Through
Choose your takeout-menu food items carefully. Be sure to include food items that "travel" well. Select an impressive array of popular items at price points to suit varied budgets. Write a brief description of each menu item. Alert customers to items that contain monosodium glutamate (MSG), peanuts, shellfish or other common food allergens.
Consider adding a clip-out discount coupon to the takeout menu so you can track the success of your takeout-menu advertising.
Printing Considerations
It is always best to involve your printer in the earliest stages of the design process. Tell your printer what you have in mind so that he or she can give you the specifications for your menu. For instance, an 8.5"x11" menu is a practical and economical size for quick print shops. However, there are many ways that your takeout menu could be designed to fit this paper size. The menu could be set up as landscape (horizontal) or portrait (vertical). It could be one- or two-sided. The menu could be folded in half (a bifold) or in thirds (a trifold). You could print it in black and white or in color. It could be printed on white paper or colored paper, on "text"-weight paper or on heavier "cover" or "card" stock.
Designing the Menu
Unless you are a graphic designer, you will probably want to keep your takeout-menu design simple. You could use a predesigned menu template. These are available online from your word-processing software manufacturer or from third-party sources. (Type "menu templates" into your Internet search bar.)
You can also create your own takeout-menu design by importing photos and graphics into a page that you create in your word-processing or publishing software. Follow the program's instructions for inserting pictures and text, and for formatting the layout so that the text and graphics can be moved independently of one another.
Legibility and placement of text and images is very important. When looking at a page, the human eye tends to fall to the upper right-hand quadrant of the page. Therefore, anything that is placed in that area will have higher visibility. Add emphasis to text by enlarging it, using a bold-faced or italicized font (typeface) or making it in color. Generally, text should be no smaller than 10 point, and 11 or 12 point is easier for older adults to read. Motivate customers to order specific items by putting them at the top or the bottom of your menu list.
Develop two or three layout concepts for your takeout menu. Show them around and get feedback on them before settling on one idea. You may find that there are things you like about each one that can be effectively combined in a final takeout-menu design.
