4 ms·

If you want to build a direct relationship with customers, put an 8.5"x3.5" glossy flyer into the food order bag with your delivery phone number and your web si

If you want to build a direct relationship with customers, put an 8.5"x3.5" glossy flyer into the food order bag with your delivery phone number and your web site address on it, and hope I don't throw it out. If you call me up directly, I will be annoyed.

dmurray 7y ago
Or your menu! Even in the age of delivery apps people still keep around takeaway menus.
- misterman0 7y ago
  No, no, no, no. No! What about the trees?
  - dsego 7y ago
    If you are ordering food delivery (with plastic utensils, food containers, foil wrap etc) instead of cooking yourself (which is more economical), you don't care about trees.
    - ryan_j_naughton 7y ago
      This is a logical fallacy. The fallacy of relative privation.[1] Just because you ordered food and didn't cook at home doesn't imply you don't care about the environment. Perhaps you cook at home most days but on this particular day you were going to get home from work late and still needed to have dinner ready for your family. You still want the food delivery to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Thus I eschew being given paper plates, styrofoam containers, etc when I order out (as I can simply use my reusable ones at home with that food). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
      - jacobolus 7y ago
        You are missing the point. Whether you care about trees or not, the environmental impact of a paper menu (especially if it’s just a regular piece of office paper, rather than a glossy magazine-style page) is negligible compared to the rest of a delivered meal (well under 1/1000 of the total).
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    Argumentam ad Lorax.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  (Disclosure: I barely know anything about the restaurant business.) If you can't fit your entire menu on one tri-folded sheet of letter-sized paper [with readable print size], it's time to do a statistical analysis on your orders, and cut all the dishes that don't get ordered enough to recoup the costs of offering them. Move them to the infrequent specials menu, if you really can't stand to never make them again. If I recall correctly, one of the major reasons single-location restaurants fail is menu bloat. Diners take longer to decide what they want. It's harder to identify the dishes that are least profitable. Prep is more complicated. The order management system might require additional button presses to navigate between pages. And put the restaurant equivalent of keyboard shortcuts on the menu. As a customer, I like being able to order by number, particularly by single-digit numbers (or single letters). "Give me a number one, a number four, and a number eight, hold the mayo."
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    I can think of a few restaurants that I quit going to after they trimmed my favorite items off their menus.
    - newen 7y ago
      Taco Bell dropping dat XXL burrito ;_;
    - likpok 7y ago
      One key business insight is realizing that some customers cost more than they bring in. That may or may not apply to those restaurants, but a restaurant can't be everything to everybody. They might do better by not trying. Consider this applied to tech companies: you need to make very different decisions if you want to start a free social media site versus a webapp aimed at businesses.
  - Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
    I've seen a ton of Kitchen Nightmares videos and menu bloat seems to be a pretty common criticism, to the point where now if I go to a restaurant I'll get a bit worried that the food is going to be bad if the menu is big.

dmurray 7y ago

Or your menu! Even in the age of delivery apps people still keep around takeaway menus.

misterman0 7y ago
No, no, no, no. No! What about the trees?
- dsego 7y ago
  If you are ordering food delivery (with plastic utensils, food containers, foil wrap etc) instead of cooking yourself (which is more economical), you don't care about trees.
  - ryan_j_naughton 7y ago
    This is a logical fallacy. The fallacy of relative privation.[1] Just because you ordered food and didn't cook at home doesn't imply you don't care about the environment. Perhaps you cook at home most days but on this particular day you were going to get home from work late and still needed to have dinner ready for your family. You still want the food delivery to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Thus I eschew being given paper plates, styrofoam containers, etc when I order out (as I can simply use my reusable ones at home with that food). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
    - jacobolus 7y ago
      You are missing the point. Whether you care about trees or not, the environmental impact of a paper menu (especially if it’s just a regular piece of office paper, rather than a glossy magazine-style page) is negligible compared to the rest of a delivered meal (well under 1/1000 of the total).
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  Argumentam ad Lorax.
logfromblammo 7y ago
(Disclosure: I barely know anything about the restaurant business.) If you can't fit your entire menu on one tri-folded sheet of letter-sized paper [with readable print size], it's time to do a statistical analysis on your orders, and cut all the dishes that don't get ordered enough to recoup the costs of offering them. Move them to the infrequent specials menu, if you really can't stand to never make them again. If I recall correctly, one of the major reasons single-location restaurants fail is menu bloat. Diners take longer to decide what they want. It's harder to identify the dishes that are least profitable. Prep is more complicated. The order management system might require additional button presses to navigate between pages. And put the restaurant equivalent of keyboard shortcuts on the menu. As a customer, I like being able to order by number, particularly by single-digit numbers (or single letters). "Give me a number one, a number four, and a number eight, hold the mayo."
- whatshisface 7y ago
  I can think of a few restaurants that I quit going to after they trimmed my favorite items off their menus.
  - newen 7y ago
    Taco Bell dropping dat XXL burrito ;_;
  - likpok 7y ago
    One key business insight is realizing that some customers cost more than they bring in. That may or may not apply to those restaurants, but a restaurant can't be everything to everybody. They might do better by not trying. Consider this applied to tech companies: you need to make very different decisions if you want to start a free social media site versus a webapp aimed at businesses.
- Fr0styMatt88 7y ago
  I've seen a ton of Kitchen Nightmares videos and menu bloat seems to be a pretty common criticism, to the point where now if I go to a restaurant I'll get a bit worried that the food is going to be bad if the menu is big.