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There’s a whole field of study around optimizing your food and drink menus known as menu engineering. But the specific benefits of using and designing every type of menu are often overlooked. Although any bar, restaurant, brunch spot, lounge, or country club uses menus, it's easy to forget how integral the types of menus are to your business and to customer satisfaction.
Explore the basic types of menu, then we’ll touch on drink menus and dessert menus for good measure. From a static menu to fixed du jour menus, different menu types in hotels and restaurants teach us about the needs of hospitality industries—and how to create new experiences.
Then, hotel inventory, country club management tools, restaurant optimization softwarecan help you update the seasonal, static, or per-item brunch menu at your bar, hotel, or restaurant
If you want to dive deeper into restaurant lingo, you can check out the articles on 86 meaning, free pouring, and everything in-between.
Key Takeaway: The traditional menu definition is a list of food or drink items available for purchase, or a list of food or drink items that will be served, but hospitality has given the menu many different forms.
What is a menu? Defining Types and Their Differences
Let’s get the basics out of the way first:: What does the menu mean for different restaurants and meals?
The traditional menu definition is a list of food or drink items available for purchase, or a list of food or drink items that will be served. That can be a seasonal menu, a fixed menu, or something in between. While the majority of the time the meaning of the menu as it applies to food and drink, but that’s not always the case.
The many types of menus you can work with are vast and varied. These styles and types of menu are all about optimizing food and beverage business and service.
Of course, the meaning of menu can be applied in virtually any context where a list of services or options is presented to a customer or user. Think of a dog groomer with a menu of services.
The 5 Most Popular Types of Menus
The five most common types of menus have defined the hospitality, dining, and bar industry for centuries:
- a la carte menus
- static menus
- du jour menus
- cyclical menus
- “fixed” menus
See what defines these specific types of menus that stray from the traditional path of single-menu occasions and establishments. Knowing these differences will help you know how to price a menu.
Hybrid Types of Menu: Static vs. A La Carte vs. Cyclical
A la carte is a French phrase that translates literally as “by the card” and roughly as “according to the menu.” It began being used in the early 19th century and is not exclusive to food.
An a la carte menu lists the prices for each item separately, like most drink menus. But, cyclical and static menus are not the same kind of hybrid experiences. A la carte menus have more flexibility, allowing customers to design their own meal or, for example, a custom lamb wine pairing, while cyclical and static menus offer benefits to sell specials on happy hour and ensure higher rates of customer satisfaction.
A La Carte Menus
Phrases like “from the menu” and “individually priced” communicate that a menu or section of a menu is an “a la carte” style. It all boils down to items being priced separately, as add-ons to your meal. This can happen with sides or very specific dishes. It's what you can expect from a drink menu, too.
Du Jour Menus
Du jour menus change daily, depending on what’s available or what the chef prepared. So, “chicken du jour” means the chicken that’s available today. Likewise, “soup du jour” is the soup that’s available today. It can be a drink menu if you serve different iced teas or homemade lemonades each day, for example.
What does Du Jour mean in French?
Du jour is a French phrase that means “of the day.” It often applies to menus because the du jour menu items are only available for a limited time. This can be a daily special. It can, also, however, be something that is available for a short time period, but longer than a day, before it is taken off the menu.
Cycle Menus
A cycle menu is a menu or part of a menu that has repeated options over a specific period of time.
The cycle menu definition is fairly intuitive given its name.Cycle menus are often used for two reasons: to improve cooking operations in smaller locations without the inventory or tools for a huge range of cook-to-order items; or, these menus try to highlight and boost sales through daily specials and “happy hours”.
A bar or restaurant may have a static menu that anchors its offerings, but a cycle menu on top of it. That cycle menu showcases the same collection of special offers on the same days throughout the week.
“Day of the Week” Cycle Menu Example
Static Menus
The majority of fine dining restaurants and bars out there utilize a static menu. They typically provide the best customer experience because of the amount of options they provide, their consistency, and their easy navigation. It's one of the foundations of customer satisfaction in restaurant industry.
A static menu typically presents everything a bar or restaurant offers. Depending on the restaurant technology you use, it can be on digital display boards, or on paper. You can even leverage a restaurant menu bar codes for a modern and digital twist. A static menu may contain a la carte ordering options, seasonal meal specials, du jour recipes, and some cycling dishes options.
Drinks have their own divisions: shots, cocktails, beer, and wine. This makes static menus comfortable and easy to navigate, providing effective, well-known strategies for boosting business and even restaurant SEO when the menu appears online and uses high-value search terms.
Fixed Menus
A fixed menu is a menu with few options and a fixed total price. It can be confused with static menus because the words, outside of the context of menu names, are similar. But the fixed menu definition is far different from that of the static menu.
A fixed menu is also commonly called a set menu, and there are two common types. The table d’hote menu and the prix fixe menu.
How do Table d’Hote menus work?
A table d’hote menu is a menu that offers a choice of appetizer, entree, and dessert all at a fixed total price. It’s the set menu that provides the most freedom.
A common table d’hote setup has a diner choosing one appetizer from two options, one entree from two or three options, and one dessert from two options. And the total price doesn’t change. The fact that there are few options and a set total price make it a fixed menu, but with some variability.
What is the Prix Fixe-style menu?
A prix fixe menu is a fixed menu with little to no variability for a fixed total price. It typically includes an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert. While guests can usually modify these based on dietary restrictions or preferences, there is only one option to choose from per course. Wine pairing menus that include things like a wine pairing with salmon or a turkey wine pairing are often prix fixe menus.
Unless, of course, you choose a prix fixe menu at a different price point. There may be an option with one appetizer for $30 total, and another option with a different appetizer for $35 total. So, while there may be different options to choose from for each course, they are not all tied to the same fixed total price.
A prix fixe menu is similar to a table d’hote menu, just without the choices. In that sense, it’s less a selection of choices and more a list of what will be served. Prix fixe menus may seem rigid, but they’re excellent choices for chef-driven restaurants that want food items served as the kitchen intends.
Master Every Menu Type for Bars, Hotels, and Restaurants
In the food and beverage industries, there are a lot of options for designing and laying out menus. They're a great way to boost your restaurant or bar’s profitability and don't require a big investment. Along the same lines as specific wine food pairing menus, challenge your creativity with hybrid, seasonal, and custom QR code menus.
To boost your profit margin, think seriously about using a bar inventory system like BinWise for your beverage program. It speeds the entire inventory process up and gives you all the data you need to make profitable decisions. Book a demo and let us show you exactly how BinWise will help.
You should also make sure all your bartenders know the answer to "What is this menu ingredient or item?"
Frequently Asked Questions on Types of Menus
What is a beverage menu?
A beverage menu is any menu or section of a menu that sells alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Whether this type of menu is static, du jour, or cyclic, drink menus are still typically not a la carte designs. The digital wine list is a good example of the other kinds of menus out there.
How is the “cocktail menu” truly defined?
A cocktail menu is a specific type of beverage menu or section of a drink menu. A good cocktail menu has a mix of base liquors, glassware, and flavors. It should also have one or two seasonal cocktails. Like beverage menus, it can be a static, du jour, or cycle menu and not a la carte.
What is the traditional design for a dessert menu?
Typically viewed at the end of a meal (like a 5-course meal), a dessert menu is a menu or section of a menu that lists only the desserts. These could can be an a la carte, static, du jour, or cycle menus.
What are industry menus?
An industry menu is a bar or restaurant menu that is specifically tailored to other members of the hospitality industry.
While that may mean special food and drink items not available publicly, it most often means regular menu items at a discounted price. Often industry menus go hand-in-hand with industry nights. Those are specific nights when the industry menu is available to folks who work in food and beverage.
What kinds of digital menus work at restaurants?
A digital menu is a restaurant, bar, or hotel menu that displays its content digitally—via screen—instead of printed on paper. They are usually accessed by menu apps and QR codes.
A big benefit for either is that, if you partner with the right technology company, your digital menu will be ADA compliant out of the box. That saves you a lot of money on ADA remediation and potential legal fees. They're also quite good for restaurant SEO.
What are Menu Apps?
Menu apps are touchless, though they require downloads or software integrations to function correctly. They sometimes need a standalone app designed from the ground up.
It takes a lot of effort, money, and know-how to code an app from scratch. The alternative, a static or dynamic QR code, is a much more elegant solution.
What are QR Code-Based Menus?
A QR code based menu leverages the ease and convenience of the now-ubiquitous QR code that is easily created to access your items with these simple steps:
- Once you create a QR code PDF or HTML file (which is easy to do with QR code generators, though there are some QR code risks with free online services), you're almost done.
- Just print it out and put it on a QR code template.
- Think about whether you need to add information about how to scan a QR code on iPhone or Android for anyone unable to scan a QR code.
QR codes are useful for many reasons in restaurants and bars Explore our guides for QR code strategy and statistics on QR codes.
What makes a menu “Family-Style”?
A family-style menu involves serving dishes in large portions to be shared among everyone at the table. It helps create a communal dining experience and is often seen in Italian, Chinese, or other family-oriented cuisines.
How do you make a traditional tasting menu?
A tasting menu is a curated selection of smaller portions of a restaurant's signature dishes, giving guests a chance to experience a variety of flavors and cooking techniques in one experience. There could also be a tasting menu of the wine list.
What do hybrid menus look like at bars and restaurants?
A hybrid menu combines elements of different menu styles. A common combination is of à la carte and prix fixe types of menu. They offer a range of choices to suit their preferences.