Is your restaurant in a bit of a lull? Maybe it’s time to shake things up. How, you ask? New cuisine! There are several different ways (and benefits) to introducing new cuisine. Let’s examine a few approaches.

Find what fits

To start with, when considering what food to introduce to your restaurant, you’ll need to do some brainstorming. You need to find what fits. Think introspectively about your restaurant’s concept and what sort of cuisine you already serve. Consider your customers, their demographics, and how they might respond to a new type of item. Have any of your customers ever inquired about a type of food you don’t serve?

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re running a barbecue joint. You might end up turning a few heads if you decided to introduce a sushi menu all of sudden. Most people expect ribs, pork, chicken, baked beans, etc. when heading out for barbecue. Sushi might not be the best direction – but how about fish and other seafood? You can find seafood at barbecue restaurants here-and-there, typically offering a selection of fried fish, clams, and shrimp, but it’s not totally ubiquitous. In other words, it’s a good fit.

Branching out

Developing new options to serve doesn’t have to be such an elaborate affair that you need to start serving a completely different type of food. For example, have you considered introducing a health-targeted section on your menu? People are more mindful of what they’re eating than ever – counting calories, carbs, and everything else you can squeeze on a nutrition label. Introducing some lighter fare may be just what your restaurant need to attract some renewed interest. Perhaps you could offer a specialized organic, vegan, or diet-focused menu.

Remember to experiment

At the end of the day, before you go ahead and start mixing up your menu too much, remember that you can always experiment first. You can easily test the waters for any new entree by offering it as a special or limited-time option. That way, you can get a better idea if something deserves to stick around. Try experimenting with current trends in the industry. You can try anything from serving a trendy new craft beer, to exploiting the latest fad.

Marketing benefits

From a marketing perspective, introducing new products is always a great way to excite your fanbase. One of the top ways businesses ignite interest is by introducing a new product. You run a restaurant, you run a business. Food is your product. When you introduce new food, promoting it should be one of your top objectives.

One of the most important things to note, no matter what you introduce, it’s important to maintain a sense of consistency with your menu. Change things up too much and you risk alienating your current customers. You need to strike a balance between new and old. Trust me, there’s a happy medium.

Promote New Cuisine With CoGoBuzz

Experimenting with new menu options is a lot easier with CoGoBuzz. Our state-of-the-art service digitally promotes all of your brand new cuisine instantly thanks to powerful WiFi, SMS, and Email solutions.

It all starts with a one-time login to your in-store HotSpot. Featuring a custom landing page tailored directly to your restaurant, customers can check out your menu, specials, new cuisine, loyalty program, and more directly from the comfort of their mobile devices. On top of that, we automatically produce a full customer profile for each login!

Want to learn more about CoGoBuzz? Check out the rest of our website!

What cuisine has your restaurant experimented with? Let us know in the comments!