If you have just opened a restaurant (which for many people, is a dream business), the menu cover you choose can be more essential than you think. You may have noticed when dining in other peoples’ restaurants, that some people spend too much time on the cover and make it look out of place (for example, should a menu covers for a cafe really be leather-bound and cost more than the most expensive meal on the menu?). However, in contrast, if you have opened an expensive restaurant, a cheap cover on the menu will look equally out of place.

As every restaurant is different, and because the style in your particular establishment will be different than any other restaurant, choosing the cover will take some time and a lot of experimentation. The thought that goes into the design is important, so do not rush it – try to take as much time as is needed to produce a great quality menu cover. However, if your mind is blank or a flair for design is not your particular talent, have a think about some of the suggestions below, and they may be able to inspire you.

Cafe Menu Covers

Let us start with the cafe style menu. As mentioned above, it’s perhaps a good idea not to go “over the top” when designing this style of menu. However, that does not mean that you should not put thought into its actual design. Firstly, it is usually essential to laminate this type of menu in plastic. The great thing about owning a cafe as a business is that people will eat quickly, and the turn-over of customers throughout the day will (hopefully) be large.  This means that you can afford to charge less for your food and still turn a profit (which makes your customers like your cafe, and they will return time after time).  The problem with this is that, with more customers quickly eating and that there will generally be lots of kids inside, ultimately there will be spillage. This means that everything, including the menu, needs to be easy to clean (and hence, a plastic covered menu is ideal). For a cafe menu cover, the actual design is not paramount – what is important is a simple design, which should be accompanied by a simple, informative text-based menu.

Restaurant Menu Covers

For a steakhouse-style restaurant, which will be a little more upmarket than the cafe discussed above, but still family-friendly, there is a little more incentive to spend more money on the entire menu, including the menu cover design. For this type of menu, the suggestion would be, if you can afford it, to hire a professional photographer for an afternoon to take photos of either the chef’s specials or the best items on your menu. Use these photos on the front cover to increase people’s appetites and potentially encourage them to order the more expensive food, which will help ensure that you have a profitable restaurant (which is incredibly important for staying in business in such a competitive market).

If you have a very upmarket restaurant (Like Gary Danko’s in San Francisco) then the full-color photographs on the menu’s cover are really out of the question. What may be a better idea is to bind the entire menu in leather and use professional-quality black and white photographs of the food on the inner pages. (It is important to note, however, that you will, from time-to-time, have vegetarians dining in your restaurant. Although it will not happen often, there is always the potential that somebody may be offended by a leather-bound cover, so it may be worthwhile to keep secondary menus without the expensive leather cover available.)

Having a leather-bound menu will also generally be fairly expensive, especially if you have a large restaurant; a menu cover manufacturer will no doubt be more than happy to talk you through some of the options available and the specific costs for their services in your local area. Another option is the wood menu cover.

These are just a few suggestions, but really, the decision has to be yours. If you have put a lot of money into either your new restaurant or into renovating one that you have had for a while, have a think about whether it may be worth the money to hire a professional graphic designer. Also keep in mind that if you are going to have a lot of menus, buying a menu cover wholesale may be a good option.

A designer’s service can be cheaper than you think, and really can add that professional touch to your restaurant. In the end, unless your restaurant is in a major city, where the clientele will change every single night because of the amount of people in the city and the amount of people traveling in from outside of town, the success of your restaurant will largely be determined by repeat-custom.

You may have the best food in town, but it can often be the little touches (such as the restaurant menu cover) that people will really remember. Trying to save money initially on these things could cost you more in the long run. So have a think about it and ensure that, not only does the menu cover design fit the type of restaurant you have and its style, but that it will also impress your customers; and in combination with great food and all the other little touches, it may just keep customers eating at your restaurant for years to come.

Related posts:

1. Selecting the Cafe Menu Cover That’s Right for Your Business
2. How to Choose the Best Restaurant Menu Cover