 It is often said that your menu is the one piece of advertising that all of your customers will see. In fact, you don’t even have to steer visitors to towards it … if you haven’t handed them your menus by the time they are comfortably seated at their table customers will ask for them. Given that you know the menu will be a focal point of the experience customers have in your restaurant, it would only make sense to put some serious thought into maximizing its impact.
This is where menu engineering comes in. In the same way that consultants study which layout in a grocery store encourages the highest average order price, consultants have applied the same type of analysis to restaurant menus. And the principles are relevant to any type of menu that you can think of – wine lists, specials listed on table tents, etc. Instead of focusing on presenting menu items in an attractive font followed by their respective prices, the practice of menu engineering takes a much more scientific approach that has the specific goal of generating a higher profit per guest.
At this point you may be wondering what actions you can take to turn the plain list of items on your menu into a profit engine. And for this, we turn you to Gregg Rapp, a menu engineer with more than 30 years in the business. He sat for a series of interviews with MenuCoverDepot.com that led to a rather lengthy article which takes you through the do-it-yourself steps required to increase profitability through menu analysis and design.
Take a look at the article here entitled Menu Engineering to see how you may create or fine tune your menu to maximize profitability. You may be surprised what a difference some of the details can make!
A small warning: menu engineering helps those who help themselves. The process is not tantamount to brain surgery, but at the same time it will require you to roll up your sleeves, take out a calculator, and do some serious thinking about your customers and how they interact with your menu.
 Who makes the best pizza in the world? Who makes the best pizza in the world?
Where is it? What type is it? What makes it the best? The Crust? The Sauce? Toppings? So many variables! On some level, it is a matter of personal taste and opinion. There is also the local favorite factor. We would like to begin a quest for finding the ultimate pizza as judged by the loyal visitors of Tip20!
Please share with us your opinions on what makes for the best pizza and who makes it! We want to know where we can find it!
Please be as descriptive as possible, simply blurting out a pizza place name won’t help us to understand what makes it so great. If you can tell us specifically the best combination of ingredients that will help too, from a simple cheese pizza to the works or as some call it the “garbage” pizza! Is the sauce sweet or spicy? Is the crust thick, thin, deep, Chicago, New York, Wheat, White and everything in between?
We know you are passionate about pizza and so are we. It is at the top of our food pyramid and is an important staple to our diet. When we travel, we love to try new local favorites or anything with a twist you might consider out of the ordinary. Don’t be afraid to plug you favorite spot and clue us in on what to try there!
This is the kind of topic that will be sure to bring out the die hard pizza lover in you with fierce loyalties and undying devotion. Your opinions and suggestions will be valued by pizza lovers around the world as we all enjoy trying something better in a new place. You may find some suggestions that make your mouth water as well! We want to see if there is a clear winner too, something that stands out as a real favorite, be it combination of ingredients or specific pizzeria.
Have fun and let us know your thoughts! Now to call for delivery…
Don’t judge a wine – or a guest – by their appearance…
 We thought this was a great wine puzzle from a true story. Some details have been changed, but nothing that alters the thrust of the story…
A restaurant guest makes a reservation and mentions that he will be bringing a couple bottles of very expensive wine.
When he arrives he is quick to again point out that he spend a large sum of money on each bottle of wine (over $2,000). He asks to have the bottles decanted, stating that they are unfiltered and aged (both 2001 vintage).
The bottles were from the same American vineyard, of which the manager was unfamiliar. They both “looked” very nice, with golden etching rather that a paper label and red wax instead of a foil top.
Both bottles were gladly decanted table-side and the guest continued to talk up the wine and say how much money he spent on the bottles. There was little of the sediment that the guest had stated would be in the wine. He also invited any staff on hand to try the wine, saying they are very unique.
Tasting each wine, they were nice, but nothing that one would consider “amazing.” After decanting the second bottle there was an opportunity to look up the information of the wines only to find out that they were really $25-$30 bottles!
The guests didn’t have anything to drink other than the two bottles of wine (common courtesy says you buy a bottle off the restaurant’s list). They tipped the server decently (around 20%), but only based on the actual tab (corkage vs. the value).
So…
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If you have a story like this and would like to get the opinions of the world, please submit it to us here!
Houston waiter refuses service to a customer who insulted Down syndrome boy
Published January 20, 2013 | FoxNews.com
 Huston Waiter, Michael Garcia A Houston waiter’s Facebook page has been inundated with friend requests and messages after a story of how he stood up for a special needs child went viral.
Michael Garcia, a waiter at Laurenzo’s, was serving a family who have been regulars since the restaurant opened. The family includes 5-year-old Milo, who has Down syndrome.
“Milo wasn’t being bad, he was just talking and making little noises,” Garcia told FoxNews.com. But a customer at a nearby table who was also with his family began making comments about Milo.
The customer got up from the table and moved his family to another table further away from Milo, but still in Garcia’s serving section.
Garcia said the man continued talking about Milo and said, “special needs children need to be special somewhere else.”
“My personal feelings took over because that’s ignorance in my opinion and I told him ‘Sir, I won’t be able to serve you,’” Garcia tells FoxNews.com.
The man and his family got up and left the restaurant, while Milo’s family was unaware of the incident at all.
“Maybe there were other ways I could have handled it, but Milo is such an angel, he is a gift from God as are all special needs children,” Garcia said.
Garcia did not tell Milo’s family of the incident because he didn’t want to cause them any pain. He compared his actions to wanting to shield someone and said he hopes someone would do the same for his family. Another server told Milo’s family what Garcia had done.
“We can’t lose track of what this is about,” Garcia said about the amount of attention the story has gotten.
“It is about Milo, it is about educating ourselves and when people are different, why should you treat them any different?”
“It’s fear of the unknown,” he said.
FoxNews.com’s Alexandria Hein contributed to this report.
Original Article and Video
What would you have done in his situation as a server? What would you have done in his managers situation? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
 Improve your bartender tips with bar magic tricks! Magic does the trick for better tips!
Dean Serneel has created an excellent 4 Volume DVD set which is all you need to become an expert in the bar tending industry. Each disc is packed with step by step techniques and vital training information. Special Features include: trailers, short videos, and bonus footage. The Menus are broken down into specific categories, so your not wasting time looking for the content you need to see.
I was once at a bar and the bartender, in addition to being well versed in flair was also a bit of a magician, not professionally, but at his bar! The customers were eating out of the palm of his hand and it resulted in generous over tipping and I know they will be talking about their experience for days. What a great way to build repeat customers and fatten your tip jar! The tricks are simple, fast and easy to learn. Even just knowing one or two of them can easily make up for the cost of the DVD set over a short time. Make work fun again!
Volume 4, Practical Bar Magic, includes tried and tested magic tricks from years of working as a professional restaurant magician. Over one hour of epic, memorable, Bar Magic. Learn how to do tricks with props found behind your bar. Slow motion step by step instructions of over 25 different tricks. Learn the Floating Shaker Tin, make a Lit Cigarette disappear, and how to Steal Watches right of the arms of your guests. This disk is perfect for anyone working the wood.
This is not only a super way to improve your tips and customer loyalty, it’s loads of fun at parties too!
To get more information, see video clips or purchase Practical Bar Magic click here!
and how would you like that cooked? – Unpaid guest blog post by Emily Sam of emilysamr.blogspot.com
 I’m a server, more commonly known as a “waitress,” and I think it’s time I respond to questions and comments such as: “I tip, but I don’t think it should be expected.” “Why should I have to leave more than the total amount on my bill?” “I start the tip at 15%, then lower it every time my server does something wrong.” And this guy: “I’m basically a ‘no tipper.’ And I’m damn proud of it.”
The concept of tipping in the restaurant industry is greatly misunderstood by anyone who has never actually worked in the restaurant industry. I can understand that, to be honest. If you’ve never worked on server’s wage, how could you possibly understand why you’re being asked to contribute more than what your bill comes out to? It’s a ridiculous idea.
What you need to know is $8/hour (or whatever it is in your state) is not minimum wage for every industry. I think that’s where people make the biggest mistake: assuming that they’re tipping on top of an hourly wage. What you probably don’t know is that servers in Massachusetts only make $2.63/hr (known as “tipped minimum wage”), most of which goes to taxes at the end of the day. That is the second lowest serving wage in the United States, the lowest being $2.13/hr. And while we continue to raise the standard minimum wage, tipped minimum wage hasn’t changed in 20+ years. Can you imagine the uproar that would be set off in our country if $2.63/hr was the norm in any other industry in 2013?
When you walk into my restaurant, in exchange for me bringing you food (let alone keeping the restaurant clean and sanitary, making sure everything is fresh and up to date and keeping an ever running mental list of everything we provide to make your life easier), you throw in a few dollars for my grocery costs for the month. And let me tell you, I really appreciate it. We all do, I promise. It’s a terrible system, but that’s what it means to dine out. What I bring home after a shift is my “check,” and it’s the only money I have to spend. (My actual checks are biweekly and range from $0-20. Without tips, we still lose that money to income taxes.) And unfortunately, like most people with unpredictable schedules that don’t have the ol’ 8a-6p availability that many jobs require, it’s the only job that allows me to make any money while I go to school full time.
Another thing you probably don’t know is that a lot of restaurants require that servers “tip out” the bartender (if applicable) and the host(s) at the end of the night. That means that chunks of that wad o’ cash (lol, if only) that we have stashed in our apron isn’t even money we get to keep. I worked in a restaurant where 10% of my tips had to go to the hosts — who make between $8-10/hr in chain restaurants — and 10% of my alcohol sales went to the bartenders.
And side work. Side work is how the restaurant is set up at the start of the day, cleaned throughout the day, and broken down before close to insure that you have the clean, most well-prepped experience as possible while you enjoy a fresh dinner you don’t have to cook. Depending on the shift we work, side work can take anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours. At $2.63/hr, that means we get paid $0.657 for every 15 minutes we spend scrubbing down the restaurant and sweeping crumbs out of carpeting. (Seriously, it’s 2013… why are we still using brooms on carpeting? Someone buy us a Roomba, please.)
Running a restaurant is far from easy and most of us are just trying to eat, let alone feed our kids or put ourselves through school. I’m not saying every server deserves 20% just for showing up; as servers, we have to uphold a certain level of customer care as well. However, if your cash is too tight to consider 15-20% for good service, you’re taking time away from a server that could have another table be able to help him/her reach their bill requirements for the month. You may want to consider, like I have to, making dinner at home.
 For those that do come out to eat and tip the standard and above, please know that your server never takes this for granted. Sometimes, you really can’t even imagine the effect a generous tip will have on your server. So, thank you, for anyone that may have left more than necessary and didn’t get to see that server show all their coworkers how awesome their table was to them.
Emily Sam currently a full-time student, part-time server in a sports pub. She blogs to regain some sanity between long hours spent doing homework and washing sour cream stains out of my apron.
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