E-tablet Menu: Will Technology Lead Menus to a New Era?

Menus and technology are joining hands together.
During the recent few years, e-tablet menus are staged in many restaurants all over the world. In Australia, diners at Mitoki Japanese Modern Tapa view delicacy via ipads. In China, customers eating at Haidilao Hot Pot choose their favorite meat and vegetables by tapping screens. In US, customers are provided with a tablet when ordering at Arooga’s Grille House & Sports Bar.

It is assumed that e-tablet menus are able to contain more information and requires more customer input than paper menus. But do customers really feel better informed? Are they feeling burdened dealing with new devices? Are tablets effectively assisting customer’s ordering?

Nutrition Labeling: a Small Step to a Big Difference

Eating out has been increasingly common today. Some people argue that eating outside may lead to obesity as it is usually associated with higher intakes of energy, fat and saturated fat, as well as lower intakes of fibre, calcium and vegetables. Whether true or false, this argument brings restaurant industry further thinking: how do we help customers eat healthier?

A research published on Public Health Nutrition might have found a solution---Adding nutrition information to menu labeling. Not complicated, but it works.

Positions on Menu Influence Food Popularity



Menu is a marketing tool that should direct customer’s attention to the items that restaurants want to sell most. Many menu researchers believe that the attractiveness and power of influence of different positions on a menu are not the same. But where is the best selling position?

Two researchers from Hebrew University, Dayan and Bar-Hillel, have conducted a lab experiment and a real-world experiment examining the popularity of different positions:

Do We Overestimate Menu’s Selling Capability?

Menu has done a great job by communicating with customers. However, can menu sell? Bowen and Morris’s study published on International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management in 1995 showed that we might have been too optimistic about menu’s selling capability.

This study was one of the earliest empirical researches on menu’s selling capability. Although it had some limitations, findings and implications were still worth thinking about.

Heavy or Light: Physical Appearance of Menu Changes Customer’s Mind

Although never speaking, menu is a true spokesman, which conveys the feature, image and personality of the restaurant. While menus are handed to customers upon their arrival, customers are getting clues of the quality and service level of the restaurant by glancing at the menu.

The link between the menu’s physical appearance (eg. background color, paper material, typeface, etc.) and customer’s perception of the restaurant has increasingly attracted attention of menu researchers over the past two decades. An empirical research published in 2015 on International Journal Hospitality Management indicated that: Customers are more likely to consider it as an upscale restaurant and offering high-quality service if the menu is heavy with fancy font.