Consider using food photos in your menu only if you have a large budget that allows you to hire a professional food photographer to take professional-quality photographs. Anything less risks a negative impact on your sales and profitability.
Many non-chain restaurant owners or managers are taken in by major chain menus that sport impressive glossy, laminated menus with full bleed food photos on each page. You know what I’m talking about. Thick juicy steaks complemented by a steaming baked potato drizzled with melting butter and a delicate sprinkling of spices. Gorgeous hamburgers framed by fluffy buns, bright green lettuce leaves, red tomato slices, and seasoned fries, all work to tantalize your tastebuds and convince you to order a burger today. Thick milkshakes or frothy bar drinks boasting tropical color and luscious embellishments tempt you ask for more than just water to whet your whistle. I’m ready to place my order right now!
So what’s wrong with photos on menus?
Nothing, if you are prepared to pay a professional food photographer for his services. You also must be prepared to insist on strict quality and presentation from your chefs and servers for every plate that comes our of your kitchen, night after night, with no exceptions. If you can’t guarantee these things, food photos have no business being on your menu. Here’s why.
Menu photos raise your diners’ expectations. If you can’t produce a hamburger that looks identical to the one of your menu, then your diners’ expectations won’t be met and you risk disappointing them. While people may talk about the fabulous burgers that a chain restaurant offers, no one talks about the sad little burger with the flat bun, pale tomato, and floppy fries that still tasted pretty good, even if it didn’t look like the photo on the menu.
Identical presentation every time is impossible to guarantee. Even with the best of employees under the best of circumstances, it is impossible to produce food that looks identical to the photos on your menu every time they are served. No one’s quality control is that good. Disappointment happens, and if it happens to the wrong person, the word of mouth from that experience can have a negative impact on your business.
Photos should be taken using the plateware and glassware that you use in your restaurant. When the food you serve, including what it’s served on and how it’s presented, doesn’t match the photos, expectations are lowered and you risk diner disappointment.
Low quality photographs and their use on your menu have an adverse affect on your restaurant’s image. Less than professional quality photographs make you look, well, cheap. This can affect how much you can successfully charge for food, whether customers are impressed enough with your menu to return again for another meal, or completely turn off customers and instantly eliminate the possibility of their future patronage.
Case in point: I once went to a small “joint” for breakfast tacos. Bad photographs of other menu items, also printed on their, um, not very impressive menus, were blown up a gazillion times to become poster size and used to adorn the brightly painted walls of the dining area. While I’m certain that in a smaller format they may have looked slightly appealing, in Godzilla format the jumble of sauces, ingredients and textures resembled vomit. It was difficult to get through breakfast that morning, and my husband and I never returned for an encore. All I could think about was, “Why did they ever think those photos were appealing?” They were obviously not professional quality and their large format on the walls only broadcast that fact. In addition to looking unappealing, they made we wonder where else the restaurant operator cut corners. Shudder.
Don’t think that you or your cousin Fred can take photos good enough for your menu with you personal digital camera. This is one of the worst mistakes you can make! It seems like a no-brainer, but still many restaurant owners or managers try this, thinking that since they take great pics of the family on holiday, that means they can take great food photos.
Reality check: It’s usually never true. Amateur photos will always look like amateur photos to everyone except the photo taker. Don’t fall into this trap and risk your restaurant’s reputation by using anything except professional photos.
Professional food photographs are expensive. Plan to spend a minimum of $5K to $10K for a professional photographer to come to your location, set up a small studio in one corner of your restaurant, use appropriate lighting and accessories, and take a large number of appropriate photographs of a wide variety of your menu items. If you can’t spend this kind of money on a food photographer, don’t use food photographs in you menu. You are better off spending money to have your menus redesigned or professionally engineered. Even if you use a professional menu designer, have the menus printed on card stock, and order new menu covers, you will spend significantly less than it would cost you just to hire a food photographer.
As a designer, I find that using food photos on menu pages is overrated. I have designed hundreds of menus and less than one percent of them actually used photographs. Menus that did not show food photos almost always were equally or more successful than their counterparts.
If you want to capture the attention of your diners and drive sales of certain items, you will be more successful if you implement other rules of menu engineering into your menu design. Focus on having a great cover, good layout and menu item placement, and on highlighting a select few with boxes or icons that designate the items to be one of your “signature specialties.” Once you have a competently engineered and designed menu in place, you won’t even remember that you once considered using photographs.
Please note, I am not belitting professional food photographers or suggesting that their work is unimportant. In fact, their work is usually outstanding and their photos can often help you create a fabulous menu. Unfortunately, professional food photographers are not used often enough. With the economy in great flux and the increase in food costs, restaurant operators are looking to save money in any way they can. Even if they have budgeted for a new menu, they often haven’t factored in the cost of a professional food photographer. The problem arises when they insist on still using photos in their menus, either taking photos themselves or using someone who is not experienced or qualified to be considered a professional in this field.
For more information about menu design, visit www.premieremenus.com.
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