Sample result
Menu Anchoring Strategy Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:«My seven sections each open with their cheapest dish. I want a higher ticket without touching menu prices. Where do I start?»
① The yardstick your menu hands out today
The first price in each section is the one the customer uses to measure everything that follows. Here is how it falls today at Sazón de Origen.
| Section | Opening price | Implicit yardstick | For or against the ticket? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starters and picadas | 28,000 · House empanadas | «you get in here for 28,000» | Against |
| Soups and broths | 28,000 · Rib broth | «a soup costs 28,000» | Against: the sancocho is 60,000 |
| Traditional mains | 38,000 · Grandfather's bean casserole | «a main costs 38,000» | Against: the platter is 72,000 |
| From the stove | 38,000 · Sunday frijolada | «casseroles are the cheap end» | Against |
| Desserts | 28,000 · Lulo ice cream | «every dessert costs the same» | Blind: all five references fit inside 1,000 COP |
| Fish | 58,000 · Fried river mojarra | «fish starts high» | For |
| To share | 68,000 · House picada for three | «sharing is another league» | For |
Five of seven sections open with their cheapest reference. A customer entering through traditional mains sets the yardstick at 38,000 and reads the 72,000 platter as «almost double»; with the platter on top, they read it as the dish the section hangs from. Same number, two different menus. Figures in COP; house average ticket, 48,000.
② The proposed opening, section by section
| Section | Opens today | Proposed opening | Margin of the opener | Why it recalibrates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional mains | Bean casserole · 38,000 | House platter · 72,000 | 44,600 | The dish the house serves with most pride and the highest margin of the section. Everything after it reads reasonable |
| Soups and broths | Rib broth · 28,000 | Three-meat sancocho · 60,000 | 38,400 | It carries Sunday. Opening with the broth teaches the customer to order the broth |
| From the stove | Frijolada · 38,000 | Shrimp casserole · 60,000 | 34,800 | The whole section sells 129 units a month: if it is going to exist, let it open high |
| Starters and picadas | Empanadas · 28,000 | House ceviche · 38,000 | 25,500 | Raises the bar by 10,000 without jumping to the 68,000 board, which at that point of the menu reads as a typo |
| Fish | Mojarra · 58,000 | Garlic trout · 66,000 | 44,900 | It already anchored well; it anchors better with the highest unit margin on the whole menu |
| To share | Picada for three · 68,000 | no change | 36,700 | The only section that already anchors the way it should |
| Desserts | Lulo ice cream · 28,000 | no change | 21,800 | Here the anchor is not the problem. Five desserts between 28,000 and 29,000 are not a ladder: they are one step. There is nowhere to trade up |
The gap, which is the limit nobody watches. No proposed opening leaves a spread wider than 2.5x against its section's ceiling. The only one scraping the line is starters and picadas: 28,000 to 68,000 is 2.43x, and at that distance the category starts splitting into two markets. That is why the starter anchor is the ceviche and not the board.
And a warning before you ask for it: you do not install all five the same day. One section every 15 days, starting with traditional mains, which moves the most covers at the Tuesday-to-Friday lunch.
The full example has 1 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.