From Pickled Onions to Premium Plates: How to Create a Pub Menu

Pubs today take their food as seriously as their craft Ales and gins whether its gastro, a street food concept or gourmet pork scratchings. Developing a dynamic and appealing menu for customers can be a prime way to first entice a customer and later establish their loyalty, regardless of whether you plan on selling premium in-house dishes or take a more simplistic approach.

However, there are more factors to consider when considering how to create a pub menu than the food alone.

What to Consider When Creating a Pub Menu

When devising a pub menu for your business, the most important aspect to think about is your target audience. Your demographic and your pub concept will define both the food and drink options you offer. To align your menu with your pub’s brand identity, each item should resonate with your establishment’s distinct vibe. A pub menu can be integral to creating a decisive and thoughtful experience for a customer and will be a pivotal part of forming their opinion and therefore your reputation.

Creating a pub menu that resonates with customers involves more than just picking out dishes. It’s about crafting an experience that feels both classic and personal, while also being operationally efficient. This can be achieved by ensuring your dishes complement your drink offerings, especially since drinks usually have a higher profit margin.

Here is our pub consultants’ guide on how to create a pub menu that will keep your patrons coming back for more: 

Make Sharers, Appetisers and Snacks Quick and Concise

For the most optimised operations, your sharers, snacks, and appetiser menu should feature items that are inexpensive and quick to prepare, helping to enhance service efficiency but also reduce the need for extensive inventory. Limiting the selection to a few well-chosen options ensures that each dish can be made to the highest quality without overwhelming the kitchen or leading to unnecessary wastage. This doesn’t mean they can’t be or inventive and fresh but just simple to prepare or only need plating during service.

Create a Coherent Menu

When designing your pub menu, pubs in particular, come with a whole host of customer expectations. Pub grub and your ‘classics’ like your burgers, fish and chips, roasts, steaks and Caesar salads, flood menus throughout the country and are a staple. It might serve you to include some favourites to satisfy this tradition but that’s dependant on who you need to or want to serve. There are also many examples of how to spin or twist classics. Otherwise, creating more curated menus such as popular ‘street food’ concept is an increasing popular way to inject inspiration and complement innovative pubs. The main takeaway would be do whatever you decide to do, do it well whether classic or conceptual and avoid confusing your punters with sprawling menus that are trying to do everything for everyone.  

A coherent menu is not only efficient for kitchen operations but also contributes to a seamless dining experience for customers. By serving dishes that are curated means manageable, refined menus with a complementary style and therefore set of ingredients or flavour profiles, you can simplify inventory management and reduce waste. This approach also reinforces your pub’s identity and helps customers associate your establishment with a distinct culinary style.

At The Engine Room, we specialise in menu engineering consulting, which can help you streamline and optimise your menu by leveraging your best dishes and help you better understand your target demographic. This means you can rotate a set of crowd-pleasing, profit-making dishes with absolute confidence they will perform well in taste and pocket.

Highlight Your Most Profitable Items

Identifying and highlighting your most profitable items is key to maximising revenue and driving business growth. This involves balancing food costs and labour against pricing, to understand how to ensure your dishes are turning a profit.

Once you’ve pinpointed these star performers, employ effective menu design to strategically position them on the menu using techniques like font size, colour, and placement to draw attention and guide customers towards these high-margin items.

Specials Menu

Incorporating a Specials Menu to introduce new dishes is a savvy way to keep your offerings fresh and exciting without altering the core menu. Take advantage of seasonal ingredients and culinary trends, to create limited-time dishes that inspire curiosity.

Whether it’s a chef’s signature creation or a seasonal delicacy, specials add a sense of anticipation and discovery to the dining experience, which can attract regular customers by providing new experiences on each visit.

Finding a Niche

To truly set your pub menu apart, consider honing in on a specific aspect that resonates with your target audience. Differentiate your menu by adding a unique touch, such as featuring locally sourced ingredients, regional specialties, or celebrating global flavours. This can be through one dish, a specific choice of drink and meal pairing or a whole menu dedicated to one type of cuisine.

Finding your niche can help you carve out a unique position in the market. You should emphasise this point of difference in your menu descriptions and marketing efforts to attract those seeking specific dining experiences and to make regulars out of like-minded customers who share a passion for quality food and memorable experiences. 

By following these tips, you can create a pub menu that not only satisfies, but also delights and surprises customers. With a combination of classic comforts, innovation, and strategic planning, you can elevate your pub’s culinary reputation and keep customers coming back for more. 

How the Engine Room Can Help Your Pub Business

At The Engine Room, we bring expertise in business modelling to align and balance your pub’s vision to create a thriving profitable pub. We offer pub consultancy services to guide you through every step of establishing and growing your pub. 

Visit our website and get in touch to discover how we can assist you in reaching your business goals and ensuring your pub stands out in a crowded market.