Have you noticed that the menus in most restaurants seem to be getting smaller and smaller?

Question

loveslongnails · Accepted Answer

In my humble opinion, and I do eat out frequently, I'd rather eat at a restaurant with a limited menu than one with pages and pages of options. Where I live, there are a ton of restaurants and it's very competitive. They pick a niche and do it well; really well.

For example, one of my favs changes their menu every 7 to 14 days, subject to what's in season and available. Everything is as locally sourced as possible and fresh. They offer a variety of 3 meat dishes; beef, chicken, pork, rabbit, duck, veal, a fish of the day and a vegetarian dish. All of those come with a starch & veggies of some kind. So that's 5 main courses. They have a salad choice and two starters, so that's 8 dishes. Add 4 desserts and that brings it to 12 dishes.

That's the entire menu - 12 dishes, and it fits on a chalk board brought to your table. And the best part is that all of that, plus wine, will run you 50 Euro at most, and tipping is optional, TRULY optional, but we always do.

MrChinaski · Accepted Answer

Many restaurants in Japan serve one dish. They do it well.

Any restaurant main menu options that run: salmon, chicken, beef, game, duck, vegetarian main menu gets a big black cross from me. They smell like awkward office lunches and cruise ships.

Chefs need to work out what they want to express and do it well.

FreyaRed · Accepted Answer

Personnel cost. Lot of restaurants nowadays reheat just industrial dishes and don't cook from scratch. To make good dishes you need at least two types of stock, sauce bases, fresh cut veggies and this demands more people who cook. However this makes more dish variants possible if a restaurant has base ingredients. Prefabricated dishes don't demand as much personnel but it reduces amount of dishes on menue since not every dish can be frozen and reheated.
It's greed paired with laziness.
One few restaurant i like is friend of my dad. He has a Thai wife and she is master in kitchen, menue is a book in their restaurant not just laminated A4 paper sheet.

RandomGirl42 · Accepted Answer

We haven't noticed since the nearest restaurant to us is like 30 miles away so we rarely ever go out to eat.

BUT on a totally unrelated topic , I saw this meme and it reminded me of something u would say so I thought u should have it, so here, have a meme! 😊

Have you noticed that the menus in most restaurants seem to be getting smaller and smaller?

Massageman · Answer

The more variations, the higher the cost to produce, not only in storing all the flavors/ingredients needed, but especially the cost in prep time.

Decades ago, I was on a research team for Benihana of Tokyo. Found out that the food cost needs to be 1/4 to 1/3 to selling price to maintain a doable margin. The rest goes to rent, labor, grill time, consumables, hygiene, insurance, etc. That is why they need to push the soda and drinks- much higher profit margins than the scratch-cooked foods. (or even mass-prepped foods).

NathanDavis · Answer

that is sometimes, a good thing...

moreso if the focus is on more quality for what's on demand... rather than quantity that can lead to waste

now, if there's less options and no improvement that's just never a good sign

Unycorn · Answer

Menus? You mean for vegan oe vegetarian lifestyle or what ever people don't eat for different reasons?

Bricealan · Answer

@nikki1989 Only a guess, cost cutting for the restaurant. Carry less food item inventory? Recently have seen the same here at several places.  By the way, call those morons a Taxi and get them the hell out of here!

Razp_Sorbet · Answer

Probably more to do with the fact that a smaller menu is more economical since you dont need to have as much stuff on hand ready to go just incase someone orders it

CaptainSmartass · Answer

It's more economical to only have a few items on the menu. Especially if they share common ingredients. You don't have to buy in shit loads of ingredients for hundreds of dishes. All successful restaurants have pared down menus.

Simples...

Dancer102 · Answer

Yeah it is in some restaurants. I don’t know why. But most don’t!

AviatorTom · Answer

I have noticed that many restaurants have reduced the number of dishes that they offer. That's being done for two reasons: 1) to cut down on inventory, waste and cost; 2) since COVID, experienced chefs are hard to find.

douride2 · Answer

Yes the menus are getting smaller & the prices are getting way bigger.

123459876 · Answer

Yes and that's just because the food cost is so high to have multiple huge menus like back in the day

fish5505_87 · Answer

Yes, Holy S! I was just talking about this with my wife.

najekim · Answer

Plus the portions getting smaller and the prices getting higher.

PolarPoint · Answer

Pic is really fun :D.

Agape93 · Answer

And blander

Xawyx-2 · Answer

Meh, I noticed that (as a vegetarian).

Have you noticed that the menus in most restaurants seem to be getting smaller and smaller?

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