Behind The Scenes: Seven Ways Restaurants Make You Spend More

It has a passive effect and you might not really have paid much attention to it, but a menu cover could be the way to increase those top and bottom lines for restaurants. It is a subtle way in which restaurants implement the research carried out on the practices and psychology of their patrons in manipulating their orders.
With the stiff competition faced by the hotel industry, it is incumbent upon every hotel to include all possible strategies in their restaurant marketing to increase sales. menu covers are no exception. From the kind of menu cover they use, for example, leather menu covers, to the way in which they display items, there are many ways to influence a customer's order.
* First Comes First Serve: The first item under every restaurant heading is the most likely the one a customer will order. So, a smart restaurateur will place expensive and profitable dishes here and the food items that are not necessarily ordered in the course of meals - desserts or certain exotic food. Items that are ordered anyway need not find a place here as customers will look for them elsewhere in the menu cover.
* Corner Placement: As a corollary to the Point I discussed above, the food item that does not generate as much profit or involves more work is displayed out of view of the customer's direct line of sight. Though it may be necessary to include these dishes in the hotel's menu cover, management may not wish to promote them.
* Imperceptible Pricing: The more obscure the price tag is, the more a customer is likely to forget the cost of the item he orders.
* Four-for-the-Value-of-One Offers: Deals are always enticing. When customers are offered free food, they are more likely to take it. So, even if the original requirement was one item, customers end up falling for deals in which they buy more food for the promise of a freebie.
* Pictures: It is always alluring when there is a picture of the delicious food item available to give customers a vision of what they could enjoy. Delicious-looking deserts are especially inviting and allure patrons to order these sweet dishes.
* Pricing Mechanism: The idea that for a lower price you get a smaller plate and end up saving the extra amount for the larger plate is a misconception. Restaurants don't normally give you more for more. Their pricing is in line with their policy and it is win-win for them one way or the other.