Menu Printing Techniques

Menu printing is one of the most cost effective and potentially profitable investments a restaurant can make. Menus are the brochure of the restaurant industry, incredibly powerful motivators that bring business by the dozens - when done right. The following menu printing techniques will help you ensure you get it right the first time:

Choose a professional paper

When it comes to restaurants, quality is a source of great pride. Your customers will equate the quality of your food with the quality of your menu, so it pays to invest in premium paper for your menus. These papers feel great in your customers' hands and have a bright (gloss) or subtle (matte) sheen that adds a touch of class. Excellent choices include 100-pound gloss cover, 80-pound or 100-pound gloss text, or eco-friendly  recycled 80-pound matte cover and 70-pound matte text paper stocks.

Choose the best size and fold

How will your menus be used? Do you need big menus for table tops and small menus for take-home? Will your menu be four pages or a tri-fold? Will you be printing single-sheet inserts to place in clear plastic? Take-home menus can usually be smaller such as 8.5-inch by 11-inch, while larger 11-inch by 17-inch table menus have more impact.

Go full color

Black-and-white menus are not only passé, they simply don't do your menu justice. Go with full-color menu printing, since state-of-the-art technologies have made it more affordable than ever. You want your restaurant menus to look stellar next to the competition, and going with full-color printing is the easiest way to do this.

Order coupon perforations

If your take-out menus include coupons, order perforations for clean tearing, so they can save your menus for future use. Coupons are a great way to drum up business and encourage customers to try new items, so use them whenever possible to add value to your menu.

Get a proof and order in volume

The last thing you need is 10,000 menus with typos, so get a hardcopy proof and read everything with scrutiny. Just as a well-planned menu can yield super return on investment, a poorly proofed menu can put your restaurant in the dumps. The more menus you order at one time, the cheaper your price per menu is. This is because your initial fees are wrapped up in press set up, but once it's running, producing beautiful menus becomes extremely inexpensive. Print as many as you'll use during the next year to save a bowl full of green - and we're not talking lettuce. Your menus should be treated as a marketing investment primed for boosting sales. It should be printed with your ultimate image in mind. Employ these menu printing techniques for powerful menus that say high quality.