When it comes to making new menus, many factors must come into play; food cost and availability will likely be at the top of any restaurateur’s mind.  According to a Time article, though, the font may be in the back of the customer’s mind.

This news article is based on a report that will appear in October in Psychological Science, and the researchers report that certain font types on menus convey very particular emotions to diners.

“To conduct one of her experiments, Song compared the responses of subjects exposed to menu descriptions typed in a simple Arial font with responses from those exposed to identical dish descriptions in a harder-to-read Mistral font. Subjects in the latter group were more likely to conclude that the dish was hard to prepare and required great skill.”

So if food costs are worrying you, and it’s time for that dreaded price increase, using a fancy font on your new menu may lead diners to believe that there is an added value to the food.  Of course, use this tactic at your own peril, as some suggest fancy fonts will bring nothing but trouble:

“ ‘Using fancy fonts and small print may suggest that you're sophisticated, fancy and highbrow, but also pretentious and unapproachable,’ says Aaron Allen, founder and CEO of the Quantified Marketing Group, a restaurant design and marketing company based in Orlando, Florida.”

But if you really are ready for an exciting menu project, you might take a lesson from Bennigan’s.  The nationwide casual chain has recently come out with an all-Spanish menu because, as their director of marketing says, “The U.S. Hispanic community is our country’s fastest-growing segment, and this new menu is just one more way we can welcome those customers.”

…Speaking of Spanish-language offerings, here at Serv-U, se habla espanol; favor de llamar 800-797-3788!  Serv-U has everything necessary to create your new menus, so give us a call!