5 Bar Menu Design Tips to Attract More Customers

Great bar menu designs can enhance the experience of your customers and stimulate appetite. However, your menu isn’t just a list of cocktails and appetizers. When designed properly, a bar menu can be the ultimate advertising tool you can use to communicate your brand’s identity.

The Best Tips You Must Use to Improve Your Bar Menu

To increase your profit margin and entice new and loyal customers to keep coming back for more, we recommend using the following bar menu design tips and strategies.

1. Pay Attention to Your Customers

Before you create your own menu, you should consider who you’re making it for. Think of your customers and how they traditionally order. Pay attention to who sits in your bar and why. Do you have a crowd made up of working professionals, students, or are there a mix of both?

After you understand your customers, you can start adding your brand’s personality to the menu. For example, you can define your brand by using logos, colors, and a tone that makes sense for your bar. If possible, try an A/B test run of two menus and see which one is preferred.

2. Yes to Ingredients; No to Calories

80% of women have changed their minds about buying certain foods or drinks because of their calorie count. Calorie continuing isn’t a negative thing, but in the food and beverage industry, it can reduce your profits. Avoid adding calorie counts to your beers and cocktails at all costs.

However, that doesn’t mean you should list the ingredients in your drinks, nor should you keep low-calorie options off the menu. Labeling something as “low calorie” or “low fat” can actually increase sales. By mentioning ingredients, you can account for patrons with allergies.

3. Name and Highlight the Right Drinks

Every well-known bar separates itself from the competition with its signature drinks. At the same time, a drink is only as good as its name. Your patrons aren’t going to remember the “vodka drink mixed with orange juice,” but they will remember the “Screwdriver” forever.

Naming drinks can be an art form in itself, but highlighting the right cocktails is way easier. It’s crucial to put your specials on your menu with the biggest, most contrasting font from the background. Not only will this break up the monotony, but it’ll also make good use of your space.

4. Limit Your Options (Based on Price)

Consumers are often overwhelmed when faced with a lot of choices. In some instances, having 30 beers on tap or 20 different vodka brands on your shelf can be a good thing, but you need to be known for having a lot of choices. If you’re not, limit your options to about 8 or 10 per page.

If your menu is double-sided, that means you have to choose between 16-20. To start your exodus, remove half of your beer and cocktail list based on price range. Create a menu with 1/2 well-known, inexpensive options, a 1/4 for medium-priced brands, and 1/4 for high-cost rarities.

5. Be Aware of Eye Scanning Psychology

There are two prevailing schools of thought when it comes to eye-scanning technology: either customers read their menus like a book (left to right) or start at the upper right-hand corner. It doesn’t matter what the truth is because you can use both menu sections to sell products.

All of those high-cost rarities you kept should sit at the upper right-hand corner, while your medium-priced brands can stay on the left. Since your customers are more likely to look left first, you guarantee they’ll stumble on your average price liquor, which often sells better.