Stars - High profitability and high popularity

Your stars are your most popular and most profitable items. These are the ones you want to maintain and highlight on your menu.

Actions:

• Ensure consistency and do not change the quality of the product served.
• Your menu design should highlight your stars. Emphasize and feature them in a prominent location on the menu. You want to sell those items, so make sure that customers see them.
• Promote them any way you can. Work with your Sales & Marketing team to promote these items during campaigns and social media activation.
• Test the possibility of increasing contribution margin by raising the price slightly
• Consider menu extensions on this item (add-on, supplement).

Plow-horses -Low profitability and high popularity

Your plow horses are usually very popular items that customers don’t need to be reminded of. They have low profitability and high popularity.

Actions:

• Review Pricing. Is your pricing strategy relevant for these items? Compare your pricing vs. the competition. A thorough study of the market will reveal the appropriate price and pricing strategy for these items.
• Look at the portion size. See if portion size is killing profit; are customers leaving these menu items on their plates? Any particular feedback from your customers in regards to the portion size?
• You also might try experimenting with less ingredients or less expensive ingredients. That will help to increase contribution margin. However make sure that it does not affect the overall satisfaction of the guests and perceived value of the menu item. Test and learn.
• You might try experimenting a more profitable version by working with your suppliers to get a better price for the same quality item.

Puzzles - High profitability and low popularity

Not popular but profitable items are often a puzzle. Your puzzles are your hidden gems. They’re valuable, but customers don’t see them as viable options. They’re highly profitable, but difficult to sell.

Actions:

• Engage with your customers. Investigate whether they like these items. You may need to reinvent or rename them in a more attractive way.
• Shift demand to these items by repositioning them on the menu. Feature and highlight these items on your menu, and make them specials.
• Encourage servers to suggestively up-sell these items. (i.e. incentives, contest)
• Consider decreasing the price slightly or adding value by offering a larger portion size or add-on option. That will help increase popularity to produce higher overall profits. However, you need to be cautious so that you do not change the item into a popular but unprofitable item.

Dogs - Low profitability and low popularity

You want to have as less as possible dogs on your menu. These items aren’t contributing to profit or profitability.

Actions:

• These items should be “strategic dogs” which balances menu (i.e. gluten free) or supports and strengthen the overall concept of the restaurant.
  If it is not the case, determine why these items are not selling:
    
  • Engage with your customers and ask feedback on those items. Consider adjusting and reinventing these items accordingly (price/ingredients/plating/name).
  • Review the menu description and design. A change could help improve sales.
  • If those items keep being neither popular nor profitable they are obvious candidates to remove from the menu