Sample restaurant menu audit

These describe how the prices are arranged on the page. None of them says a price is too high or too low — that depends on cost, portion and demand.

What this audit could not judge

• How often each dish actually sells

  Needs your dataCannot be judged from the menu alone. Add the figures named here to assess it.

  A sales export from your till for a normal trading period. Without it, no dish can be called popular or unpopular.

• What each dish costs you to make

  Needs your dataCannot be judged from the menu alone. Add the figures named here to assess it.

  Recipe specs and current supplier prices. Margin notes here are a band estimated from dish type and price, not a costing.

• Which dishes are Stars, Plowhorses, Puzzles or Dogs

  Needs your dataCannot be judged from the menu alone. Add the figures named here to assess it.

  Both of the above together. That classification is contribution margin plotted against sales volume, and guessing it from a menu would be inventing both axes.

A menu audit cannot say which dishes make money. This is the difference between the audit and profitability analysis: the table below is what the menu supplies, and what only the operator can add.

1. Add a short sides and extras section beneath the mains — chips, a salad, a sauce, something to add to a burger — each with a price.
2. Consider whether one or two dishes could genuinely justify a premium price. They do not have to sell in volume, but check their cost and portion before adding them.
3. Check whether the price ladder reflects each dish’s ingredient cost, portion size and perceived value before changing any price.
4. Add the portion cost for each main, starting with the highest-priced dishes.
5. Export four weeks of sales by dish from the till, so popularity can be measured rather than assumed.
6. Re-run the audit after changing the menu, and compare the two.

• —This sample menu was written for illustration. In the product, an uploaded menu is read into dishes, sections, prices and descriptions, and you check and correct that read-back before anything is analysed.
• —Each finding is produced by fixed rules over the menu as read — counting, comparing prices within a section, and checking what is missing. The same menu always produces the same findings.
• —Every finding carries one label. Observed: counted directly from the menu. Calculated: worked out from figures you entered. Estimated: inferred from dish type, price and wording. Needs your data: cannot be judged from the menu alone.
• —The score is built from four area scores — pricing, wording, structure and completeness — each starting at 100 and reduced by the severity of the findings in that area, and by how many dishes each one reaches. The headline leans towards the weakest area (60% the lowest, 40% the average), because one weak area costs a menu more than three good ones earn. It measures what the menu communicates, not how profitable the business is.
• —No AI-drafted wording is included in this sample, so every sentence in the findings is the rule-based output.
• —Findings are based on the menu as scanned. They are a starting point for your own judgement, not a substitute for your sales and cost figures.
• —Any allergen or dietary note describes what was found on the menu. Verifying allergen information against your own recipes and suppliers remains the responsibility of the food business.
• —MenuMargin provides decision-support tools. The operator remains responsible for commercial, menu, allergen and pricing decisions.