Sample result
Selling Copy Builder for Restaurants
The owner asked this:"I need copy to move the Trucha al ajillo at the Tuesday-to-Friday lunch, which is when we fill up. I post on Instagram and message my own-delivery customers on WhatsApp; the dish is 52,000 and almost nobody orders it."
① The dish chosen and its proof
The dish being pushed: Trucha al ajillo (garlic trout), 52,000 COP, Tuesday-to-Friday lunch. The other two signature dishes were ruled out for different reasons. The Bandeja de la casa, the house platter, sells itself and is what pulls the house food cost up to 34%: it costs 14,300 COP against 42,000 and leaves 27,700 COP a plate, so spending the copy there is paying for what already happens. The Sancocho de tres carnes, the three-meat stew (38,000 COP, cost 11,800, margin 26,200), goes out almost entirely at Sunday midday, which already fills. The trout costs 16,100 COP, lands at 31% food cost —under the house ceiling of 32%— and leaves 35,900 COP: 8,200 COP more than the platter in the same chair. Since weekday lunch is already full, this is not about selling more covers: it is about changing the mix.
Before a line gets written, the proof inventory. Whatever cannot be checked at the table does not go in:
| Claim | Source | Who verifies | Used or dropped |
|---|---|---|---|
| 220 g trimmed fillet | Standard recipe card | Line cook, with the scale | Used |
| Trout from eastern Antioquia, delivered whole twice a week | Supplier invoice | Head chef | Used |
| Garlic confited 40 minutes over low heat, not sautéed | Standard recipe card | Head chef | Used |
| "The best trout in Medellín" | None | Nobody | Dropped: a superlative with no award behind it |
| "Ready in 12 minutes" | One Friday's docket: 19 minutes | Floor manager | Dropped: the kitchen does not meet it |
| "Grandmother's recipe" | The house opened in 2020; the trout joined the menu in 2022 | You | Dropped: it is not true |
Illustrative figures, built from the data you gave. Plate costs are assumed until you check them against the month's costing sheet.
② Two versions, ready to publish
Two different angles, not the same text combed twice. Both versions make "home cooking, served like a restaurant" believable, and both sound close, unpretentious and proud of where the food comes from.
Version A · product angle · Instagram, Tuesday 1 September, 10:40 a.m.
The trout comes up from El Retiro twice a week and arrives whole through the back door. A 220-gram fillet, garlic confited forty minutes over low heat —confited, not sautéed, which is what takes the bitterness out— and lime at the end. 52,000 with a side and salad. Tuesday to Friday at lunch, until Friday the 4th. Order it as soon as you sit down: twenty minutes of kitchen, and the day's fillets run out.
Why it works with your guest: the 30-to-45 professional who has lunch on weekdays is not moved by an adjective; he is moved by knowing somebody counted today's fillets. And "arrives whole through the back door" is the line a server repeats from memory in fifteen seconds.
Version B · occasion angle · WhatsApp to your own-delivery list, Wednesday the 2nd, 11:15 a.m.
There is trout today. If you are stuck having lunch at the office, we send it with the garlic still crackling: 220 grams, with a side, 52,000. Reply with a time between 11:30 and 1:30 and it lands on your desk at that hour. Until Friday.
Why it works with your guest: it pulls the craving-for-home-cooking lever at the one moment that guest cannot come in, and it goes out on WhatsApp because that is the channel where somebody answers.
One reason that went into NEITHER version: that the trout leaves you lighter for the afternoon. It is probably true and there is no way to check it at the table, so it lives in this note and not in the copy.
③ The menu, dish by dish
Today's menu describes with ingredients and nothing else —"trout, garlic, lime, salad"—, which is a shopping list. The template has four boxes per dish: the desire line promises and the proof holds it up.
| Dish | Desire line | Proof | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bandeja de la casa | What gets eaten in an Antioquia home on a Thursday, served complete | Cargamanto beans cooked six hours; same-day pork crackling, not frozen | 42,000 COP |
| Sancocho de tres carnes | The Sunday lunch almost nobody cooks at home any more | Beef, pork and hen in one pot, three hours; the broth served on the side | 38,000 COP |
| Trucha al ajillo | The river dish, with the garlic confited and not sautéed | 220 g fillet from El Retiro; garlic over low heat for forty minutes | 52,000 COP |
Three rules so you can fill in the rest of the menu yourself. One: the desire line names a moment or a person, never an adjective. Two: the proof carries a number, a technique or a place; if it carries none of the three it is not a proof, and you go to the kitchen to find one. Three: the price goes on the same row and in full, because a hidden price reads as expensive.
The same row works for the printed menu, for the delivery-platform listing and for the own-delivery message, but on a screen it flips: the desire line first and the name after, because there the guest decides with a thumb and with no server to talk the dish through.
What does not get touched are the names. Guests already say "Bandeja de la casa" at the table, and renaming a dish the guest already orders from memory costs more than it returns.
The full example has 2 more part(s): you see them inside the library, with your account.