I recently dined at a new Mexican restaurant in town. And though the atmosphere was inviting, the waitstaff polite and the food relatively good, I left the establishment less than satisfied. The problem? I had no idea what I was ordering.

Like a preview to a movie or a synopsis of a book, a menu is the opening act of your dining experience. It sets the stage for first impressions. And though it may appear to be a relatively insignificant tool, the truth is, a bad menu that misses the mark can taint the entire meal. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened to me. Below are my first impressions of the restaurant’s menu:

• Overwhelming
  The problem isn’t that I don’t like choices. I do. It’s just that I was given five pages of continuous decisions and it didn’t end there. Besides selecting an actual entree, I had to choose one of three different types of meat, one of three different types of sauce, one of two different types of tortilla and three separate side items. So in the end, to place an order for one meal, I had to make eight separate decisions in a matter of two minutes.
• Authentic, but lacking description
  The great part about the menu was that all the entrees took the true form of real Mexican cuisine. Which meant that, despite the few familiar words such as burrito, taco and enchilada, most the names were foreign to me. For the record, this was not the issue. The problem was descriptions about the dishes were completely missing. That left me with two choices: either have the waiter explain the entire menu for me or roll the dice in a guessing game and hope it turned out okay. I opted for the latter, and was none too pleased with the decision.
• Sloppy
  Mistakes happen. That’s simply a part of life. So a small misspelling here or there is understandable. However, it’s hard to ignore errors when they continually occur. Within ten minutes of perusing the menu I found more than two dozen spelling mistakes. Some of which were quite surprising: “chikn” (chicken), “coca loca” (coca cola), “bef” (beef) and even “borito” (burrito). The only conclusion I could make in this regard was that the menus were simply drawn up, printed and stacked on the hosting podium without a single glance over by another editing eye. By today’s standards, that’s quite unheard of, but the only explanation I could muster.

I have no idea what it’s like to open a new restaurant. From what I can imagine it is no easy task. Between choosing the perfect location to achieving a marketing strategy that actually works—and all that lies in between—hard work and dedication are an absolute must. So it’s not hard to imagine that anyone who expends such undying effort into a project would allow for anything less than success. After all, the last thing any participant wishes to see is their project fail. That is why ease of workflow is extremely valuable in business. Not only does it foster productivity, but it creates a fluid, less stressful environment that opens avenues for continuous process awareness and improvement.

Our job at Slaughter Development is to help businesses reach a level of productivity that is both effective and satisfying for all stakeholders involved. After all, no one should have to work overtime to reap a small portion of benefits a business has to offer; particularly when it comes to buyers, customers and stakeholders. That is why we believe wholeheartedly in the process of methodology engineering as a viable solution toward renewing broken processes.

Don’t allow failed first impressions get the better of you or your business. Consider reaching out to us today to learn more about how we can help get you back on top.

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Tags: confusion, errors, frustration, menu, mexican food, mistakes, process, workflow