Menu engineering: which dishes make you money and which don’t
Your bestseller may not be your best earner. Menu engineering crosses sales and margin to decide what to feature, what to fix and what to drop.
Menu engineering looks at your menu dish by dish using two numbers: how much each one sells and how much each sale leaves you. The method came out of US hospitality schools in the 1980s and is still used because it’s simple: a spreadsheet and one month of data are enough to make decisions.
The two numbers you need
- Popularity: how many units of each dish you sold in the period.
- Contribution margin: price minus ingredient cost, in pesos per dish.
Note: a dish with a 45% food cost can leave you more pesos than one at 25% if it’s pricier. That’s why menu engineering looks at pesos, not percentages.
The menu engineering matrix
Puzzles
Good margin, few sales. Make them visible.
Stars
Sell a lot and earn a lot. Protect them.
Dogs
Low sales, low margin. Candidates to go.
Plowhorses
Sell a lot, earn little. Adjust price or cost.
Popularity → →
Example: mains at an Argentine grill
| Dish | Price | Cost | Margin | Sold | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sirloin steak | 24,000 | 11,500 | 12,500 | 420 | Star |
| Milanesa napolitana | 15,000 | 4,000 | 11,000 | 520 | Plowhorse |
| Flank (vacío) | 19,000 | 7,000 | 12,000 | 360 | Plowhorse |
| Rib eye | 27,000 | 12,000 | 15,000 | 180 | Puzzle |
| Skirt steak | 23,000 | 7,500 | 15,500 | 140 | Puzzle |
| Matambre pizza | 17,000 | 6,500 | 10,500 | 120 | Dog |
Prices in ARS. That month, 1,740 mains were sold. Popularity threshold: 70% of the average share; with six dishes, 1,740 ÷ 6 × 0.7 ≈ 203 units. Margin threshold: the weighted average (sum of margin × units sold, divided by 1,740), about ARS 12,300.
What to do with each type of dish
- Stars: don’t touch the recipe or portion. Give them prime spots and keep quality consistent. Raise prices only gradually.
- Plowhorses: the milanesa sells itself. Try a small price increase, review the side and portion, and put it in a combo with a drink.
- Puzzles: rib eye and skirt steak leave over ARS 15,000. Move them to the top of the section, add a photo and a good description, and have servers recommend them.
- Dogs: the matambre sells little and earns little. Replace or drop it, unless it’s what brings a group in, like your only gluten-free option.
- 01
Pick a period and category
One month; starters, mains, desserts and drinks separately.
- 02
Gather sales and costs
Units per dish and each recipe’s cost at current supplier prices.
- 03
Classify
Work out both thresholds and place each dish in the matrix.
- 04
Change and measure
One change per dish; review next month.
To make your puzzles look their best, see how to take food photos with your phone. And to keep lifting what each guest spends: how to increase the average check.
How often should you do menu engineering?
Every time you change the menu or prices. With costs moving fast, repeating it every one or two months for mains is reasonable.
Should you remove all the dogs?
Not necessarily. A low-selling dish may be the reason a whole table comes in, like a vegan or gluten-free option.
- #menu design
- #margin
- #analytics
- #average check