Chicago restaurant printing that elevates your brand identity—Midwest Custom Print delivers custom menus that impress and drive sales.
Restaurant Menu Printing in Chicago
Menus are a unique custom print product because customers spend the most time looking at them compared to anything else you will find at your local print shop. They aren’t just a price list of the latest house specials or courses; menus are a very powerful marketing tool and business asset. Local chefs can really tell their stories behind their food and what makes them so special. The restaurant’s identity, theming, and branding are all unified with the right menu templates. It’s also especially important to make sure they are properly printed in order to avoid errors, since people spend several minutes reading them over again.
Chicago is home to over ten thousand restaurants, with ones seemingly coming and going on a monthly basis. To say that the restaurant scene is competitive in the Windy City would be an understatement. It’s here that good menu design and quality matter in order to stand out amidst a literal sea of thousands. The following is everything you need to know about designing, printing, and using a restaurant menu in time for your grand opening in Chicago.
Importance of Menu Printing for Restaurants
Since menus need to make an impression on the customers, you’ll need to do much more than just typing it up, printing it out, and calling it a day. Believe it or not, restaurant menus are psychology-driven, both in how customers expect them to be and how they can influence their ordering decisions. At this point, they are a formality of restaurants. So, like any formality, such as a handshake or business card, it must be professional and high-quality. Here are some ways you can enhance the quality of your restaurant menu:
- Hierarchy-based design — This is uniform among all restaurant menus, with all items and dishes divided based on course, meal type, and main dishes based on protein. Customers expect an organized way to be taken through the menu.
- Creative menu design — That’s right, you can afford to be creative to drive more customers. This especially helps if your restaurant has a theme. This can include vibrant colors, custom or photo graphics, pretty fonts, and perhaps even an “about the chef” section somewhere on the tri- or bi-folding menu. Just be sure that it’s all clear and readable.
- Consider the material — It absolutely helps to consider a reusable and high-quality material for the menus, like craft or brown craft paperstock. Simply handing out a sheet of paper with the menu listed on it doesn’t seem professional and gives the impression that your food is messy.
Enhancing Customer Experience With Custom Menu Design
The hierarchy-based menu layout is the customer experience of looking through all the dishes in an organized and expected manner. It’s up to the restaurant owner to spice it up and make it their own from there. This can be done with graphics accompanying the house special or the fan favorite dish that customers most often look for. A professional menu can increase browsing time by:
- Using data — A steakhouse, for example, reserves an entire space on its menu to list its different cuts. This is because they specialize in them and know that customers order them the most compared to their other items.
- Dish descriptions — While not required, nearly every restaurant is adapting descriptions regarding ingredients and flavor when it comes to dishes. These can especially help influence a customer’s ordering decision, and they may end up choosing something they normally wouldn’t because of it.
- Tactile experiences — A hard-covered menu gives the appearance of a book rather than a brochure, which appeals to a customer’s sense of touch. One that features pictures of dishes appeals to their sense of sight. One that features a special section about the restaurant’s history can give them a more authentic experience.
Establishing Brand Identity With Menus
The menu is what ties together brand unity and identity, and is where it can really tell a story. For example, a fine dining establishment’s restaurant includes the branding in the main heading and also credits the executive or head chef.
Take Nobu Chicago, for example. A menu that includes the restaurant company’s branding through the folds and pages, and tells a story of a sushi chef who has created his own style in such and is offering a chance to share it with the diners. It comes from a place of professionalism and expertise.
Meanwhile, a casual place to grab a bite to eat, like Mr. Beef, doesn’t need an elaborate menu to serve Chicago street food. At places like these, it’s less about telling a story and more about providing a service that they are renowned for. And here in Chicago, there are plenty of street food places competing.
Types of Menu Printing
Traditional Menu Printing
Today, an overwhelming amount of customers still prefer physical menus they can read through. Be it standard paper, laminated cardstock, or bound formats, these are guaranteed to provide customer engagement.
Digital Menus
There are digital menu boards, like those at fast food places, that are necessary because customers aren’t given printed menus. However, there are some restaurants that opt for digital menus that are accessible by a scannable barcode at the table. These can save on materials, and customers can look at the menu ahead of time during their wait times.
Benefits of Custom Menu Design
It does help to consult menu design templates to get an idea of what is generally expected when the average customers look at one. Even smaller restaurants should consult design templates to give their selections more of a presentation. Building on your custom designs from there should help differentiate your restaurant from the others, making similar dishes.
Another great example of good menu design in Chicago is Hawksmoor. As a steakhouse with a section of Grade-A cuts, the restaurant is themed like an 1800s meat fair and market. The menu complements this with vintage cattle graphics and butcher shop iconography. A great custom-printed menu truly complements the restaurant and ties into its theme and identity.
Professional Printing Services and Strategies
Starting with the appetizers and first course, your menu should then jump into the different types of dishes based on main protein (meat), type of food (handhelds, pasta, etc.), and house specials or main courses. Desserts naturally come in at the end, and drinks tend to get a menu of their own depending on drink service. Drink menus bring us into the most important part of menu printing strategies—consistency.
There’s the question of special or seasonal items and menus. Naturally, they should be printed and designed the same way that the other menus were. Restaurant branding, menu structure, and styling should all be uniform and consistent. Yes, this includes the tiny takeout menus you hand out to customers, too. Of course, you can spice up your seasonal menus with creative details like pumpkins for the fall or snowmen for the winter.
Professional Menu Printing in Chicago IL
This is also the opportunity to optimize your restaurant’s menu to drive sales. It’s a fact that a good menu layout and highlighting key dishes will impact your sales. Find your menu maker in Chicago with Midwest Custom Print. With one of the most active restaurant communities in the United States, we’ve know a thing or two about what people look for in a dining experience here. We are eager to help elevate your restaurant’s brand, whether you’re looking to switch up the menu or need it ready for grand opening night.
Our brochure menus are available in four different folding styles with matte and gloss printing options. Our in-house design team is ready to help give your menu a professional optimization that will surely add to the list of dining experiences in Chicago with our print shop restaurant menu. Give us a call at 844-928-7866 or visit us at 1100 W. Cermak Rd, Suite 731, for a free quote today!
Frequently Asked Questions About Custom Menu Design
Where Are Food Allergy Warnings Placed on Menus?
The common practice is to place an asterisk or star next to dishes that include ingredients to which customers may be allergic and place the disclaimer at the bottom of the page, accompanied by an asterisk or star. This is so customers will easily be able to spot it, and it won’t intrude on the menu’s flow.
What Colors Are The Best For Menus?
Look at your restaurant’s branding colors or the palette of the restaurant itself, and see what colors can best tie into them. A seafood with a blue and white interior may benefit from a blue and white menu, for example.
How Many Menus Should a Restaurant Have?
The number of menus varies based on seating arrangements and capacity. Think of how many menus per seat you will need. As a helpful rule of thumb, only one drink menu is needed per table.
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