An example scenario. A restaurant at a family hotel in the mountains, a summer menu of about seventy items, one owner who decides the menu, and a chef. The items, periods and tasks are invented and serve as an illustration. Replace them with your own.

Why the end of the season is the best time

When the last guests leave, you still remember what sold, what came back to the kitchen, which dishes slowed down orders and where guests asked the same thing. In a month or two these things blur. That is why next year’s menu is made now, not in the week before opening.

Assumptions of the scenario

  • The season ends at the end of September, winter is quieter but has holidays, and spring starts with the first groups and St George’s Day.
  • The menu is in ISKA Menu or another digital menu that can be edited from a phone and keeps changes as a draft until publishing.
  • There are no revenue calculations or guest forecasts: the order described is only a way of arranging the work.

First step: three piles

Print the current menu or open it on screen and mark every item with one of three words.

  • Keep: dishes that are ordered all year round and are easy to prepare, for example basic soups and classic main courses.
  • Take off for the season: summer salads, cold soups, ice cream, everything that depends on ingredients that are not fresh in winter or not at a reasonable price.
  • Update: dishes whose price, portion or description no longer match reality.

Most often the third pile is the biggest. Prices from the start of the season are rarely right at the end of it.

Second step: dishes taken off are not thrown away

Many owners delete the summer items and enter them again next year. The loss is bigger than it looks: with what is deleted, the description, the photo and the translation, which took time, disappear.

So for every dish taken off, write on a plain sheet:

  • the name and where the description and photo are;
  • the last price and when it was valid;
  • why it was taken off: seasonal product, weak sales, complicated preparation;
  • what needs to be fixed to bring it back, for example a new photo or a shorter description.

In the digital menu, check whether you can hide an item from guests without deleting it. If you cannot, at least save the text and the photo separately.

Third step: checking the permanent items

Even the unchanged dishes need a look.

  • Prices: compare with current supply prices and recent costs, not with last year’s sheet.
  • Allergens: if the recipe or the supplier has changed, review the allergens listed for the dish. Check how to present them for your venue.
  • Photos: remove those that do not look like today’s dish.
  • Languages: if the menu is in more than one language, review the translations of the items you changed during the season.

Fourth step: winter and spring as drafts

Do not enter anything live straight away. Create two drafts.

  • Winter version: shorter, warmer dishes, fewer items, a clearer main offer for the evening. A shorter menu is easier for the kitchen in the quiet months.
  • Spring version: brings back some of the dishes taken off and adds the holiday offers, for which there is a separate calendar in the article on the holiday menu.

While they are drafts, guests see the current menu and nothing gets mixed up. You publish the winter version on the day you decide on it, and leave the spring one until the preparation for opening.

Fifth step: twenty minutes of notes

Before you close the book, write down:

  • which three dishes guests liked most and which three came back;
  • what guests asked about the menu most often, for example whether there is a vegetarian option or which dish is gluten-free;
  • where the team got stuck, for example which dish is hard to explain;
  • which supplier changed a price or stopped a product.

These notes replace memory. In spring you will open them ready, instead of reconstructing them from memory.

What to do when

  • The first week after the season: three piles and the notes.
  • The second week: checking the permanent items and the winter draft.
  • Before opening: the spring draft, photos, prices from the suppliers’ current quotes.

What to take from here

The end of the season is not the end of the work on the menu, but the calmest moment for it. Three piles, saved dishes and two drafts make next year easier, without losing anything.

Where ISKA Menu helps

In ISKA Menu, changes stay as a draft until publishing, and the menu is edited from the portal and from a phone. The link stays the same, so preparing the winter and spring versions requires nothing new at the tables. Current plans and prices are on the pricing page.