Tricks in selecting the food menu for delivery, new entrepreneur should know! Be the best selling, deliver the food on time

For inexperience or restaurant that never do the delivery, the need to do the delivery in lock down according to the Covid.  Today, MHAs has the trick in selecting the menus for food delivery.    We would like the restaurant to have the best-selling and able to deliver the food on time.  We would like to bring customer satisfaction until they come to our restaurants again and again.  Start from 

1. Put yourself in the mind of your customers.  Which menu would you order very often?

Many restaurants make mistakes because they think that their menu is flavorful.  Customers will order these menu  very often. That’s from our viewpoint.  We cheer our food any way.  Please try to let such feeling go.  Try to think that if we are customers, how will we choose the food? Which reasons?  Is there any reason for food ordering? Try to think about 5-10 most delicious menus. Then, see which menus are easy for delivery. Test with people who are close to you which menus are interesting.  Moreover, which menus that people prefer to order.

2. Limit the menus in the restaurant.  If there are too many menus, the kitchen will be out of control. 

Try to think about 20 boxes of food with 20 different menus.  Each box has different details including food materials, ingredient and garnish, etc.  When we start the business, we have only small team.  Just think if customers order 10 boxes with different menus.  How long does it take to deliver the menu and send to rider? How long will it take to reach the customers?  It is different from eating in the restaurant because we are able to gradually serve the food to customers. 

Picture from Zen @Lineman

Therefore, we need to limit the menu.  They should not be too much.  You should focus on 1 ingredient and diversify into a wide variety of similar menu. For example, Salted Salmon Grill  can be adapted to Grilled Salmon Soya Sauce.  

 Yakisoba Pork can add menus like Yakisoba Chicken, Yakisoba Seafood or Yakisoba Vegetarian.  These things will reduce the cooking processes in each menu.  The food will reach customer faster as well.  In addition, it reduces workload of employees who work in the kitchen. 

Picture from Zen @Lineman

If you would like to increase sales per bill, you may arrange the promotion.  In the delivery App, we are able to create the Add on item for eating together. It works to have the snack.  For example, the Grilled Salmon with rice can put add on item many menus such as Wagame Seaweed, Miso Soup, Steamed Egg, Takoyaki, Gyoza. You can take the drink such as Iced Green Tea, Mineral Water, Coke, Sprite, etc. as well.    Customers may prefer to order via Line directly, When customers place the order they need, we are able to propose the snack or drink for eating with the food.  For example, “would you like to have Karaage Chicken as a snack?  Right now, the promotion reduces to….”  Please don’t forget to brief the admin staff in this part.  

If you would like to design the menu to fascinate the customers, please search for the signatures ones.  Starting from the menu or free online course. You should design interesting menus.  Then, you will have the incomes like professionals.   It is suitable for restaurant owners who would like to develop new menu or adjust the existing menu to become popular ones.

3. Delivery must be made within 30 minutes

This point is very important.  If you are customers, you would prefer to eat hot food and don’t need to warm the food.  Food safety is also important. Please keep in mind that customer expect good food quality.  Although it is the delivery, the food must be hot.  When you open the box, it is still hot.  It Is like you eat the food right from the oven.

For this subject, apart from cooking food, the package should be great as well.  Some kinds of food box cannot store the heat.  So, it is suitable for short distance travel such as buying from restaurants and go home  or office.  For the delivery, the box must be strong.  These boxes will be accumulated and must keep the hot temperature for a while.  The food package must not spill, particularly the flowable food.  The food should not spill and mix in other food in the same box.  Please add putting the food in the bag and tighten the bag before          putting in the box.  

We recommend you to buy high-quality, strong and high heat storage packaging.  It will help to maintain food quality to the best for customers.   If you have a certain amount of capital, please put the sticker on the package.  If you have enough capital, please order the packaging of your restaurant.  It is the marketing with packaging.   

Addition : Study the packaging at, choose the packing,  Delivery, Convenience for the shop, Comfort for customer, Branding through packing, food, value added, build the difference, customers remember our restaurant

4.Testing before opening the restaurant

If you have planned everything, please try the test for 2-3 days.  You may start from the ones you know. You will have the full test which is receiving real menu as much as you can.  You may test with the ones you know, relatives or friends.  Then, you try to see how long it takes from receiving, cooking until delivering the food to customers  

Try to deliver by yourself or ask the motorbike tax to deliver the food   And see the worst scenario, overflowing orders, cannot cook on time, late delivery until the food is cool.  If the food is cool, customers can accept or not.  How many minutes for the late delivery?  Is the ingredients enough?, etc.  Please think that good food selling must be the pessimism. Don’t be optimism.  This is the business.  Information from opening our restaurant enables us to see the shop weaknesses.  It is used for making the decision so that there is the most perfect food delivery business.  For example, do we need more staff?  Do we need to remove some menus for timely delivery? Moreover, we need to calculate from the test.  If we really sell food, there will be enough profit for long-term operation or not. 

Addition : For this section of details, please try to study further from Strategy for strategies for success in Food Delivery style, Conclusion of highlight from 3 experts in Smart Restaurant Plus

Let’s try to do the case study for selection of delivery menu 

First case, shabu buffet restaurant – Normally, customers eat in the restaurant, there is no delivery.  When we will do the delivery business, we shall sell the food as a set.  Each set consists of meat, vegetable, dipping sauce and glass noodle.  For the small shabu set, customers can boil in a small pot.  However, our survey reveals that a group of customers do not have the oven and electrical cooking pot.  There is the limit in bringing the meat and vegetable to boil. Therefore, customers cannot order a small shabu set very often.

So, the restaurant includes the dry noodle with grilled duck that customers can eat right away. For the shabu, all ingredients are boiled. Then, we separate the soup and dipping sauce to warm in the microwave oven.  For a small shabu set, we target on the customers who have the oven and electrical cooking pot at home.

The Second Case, the Food by Order  Normally, customers order the food from about 20 menus.  When we need to do the delivery, we choose the 10 best-selling menus. It is suitable for delivery and can cook very fast.   If you have lunch menu, we recommend you to sell in delivery platform and social media of the shop. You should include Tom Yum and soup in the dinner set for home delivery.

The third case – new owner would like to sell steak online.  The restaurant owner has the ability to cook a wide variety of steak and ingredients.  The owner select 5 menus including Spicy Chicken Steak, Black Peppered Pork Steak, Pork Chop Pork Steak, Meat Steak and Salmon Steak.  These menus are served with vegetable salad and French Fries.  We add more menus such as French Fries and Tuna Salad

By testing with the sample group, we find that people order these 7 menus.  We can deliver on time if there are 35-50 sets per day.  We can deliver within 25 minutes and 25 kilometers from home. Moreover, we complete the promotion by matching the steak with special prices.  

Credit Photo By

• Lineman