How To Create A Great Happy Hour Menu
Creating a happy hour menu that is both memorable and delicious is a fun challenge for restaurants to better get to know their customer base. Usually known as a time for discounts on drinks, food also plays a huge role in how successful happy hour is. With a few elements to put into play, both the food and drink options will be perfect for any occasion and will make for a fun way for customers to interact with one another. Read ahead for some great tips on how to create a happy hour menu that will win the approval of customers.
Tasty Sips and Good Eats
A great happy hour menu begins with amazing food and beverages at hard-to-beat prices. An excellent way to decide what will be served is to consider what the best-selling items are that would work well with a happy hour menu. Popular lunch choices including burgers with fries. Chicken wings and tacos are also fantastic food options that work very well for this type of menu and are both fun and delicious meals for patrons. Offering a decent selection of beers and spirits to accompany their meal will win hearts with customers who are looking for a simple and delicious meal that doesn't break their budget. A flame-broiled burger with fries alongside an ice-cold lager is an excellent example of a happy hour meal that will surely keep patrons coming back for more.
Try Going Small
Offering a solid happy hour selection means making certain adjustments that are better suited to this type of specialty menu, including getting creative with the food. Taking the example of burgers and fries, a burger could easily be made into smaller individual sliders. This would make for a great twist on a classic menu item while also making the dish shareable between friends, another plus of happy hour. A popular pizza dish, on the other hand, could be transformed into pizza bites that make for an easy-to-eat, tasty lunch. When transforming the menu to better suit the idea of a happy hour, the restaurant should consider the overall worth of the dish. Going too small may hinder patrons from ordering again, so they should not feel shorted by any means. If there are creative food offerings on a happy hour menu, patrons can have something fun to look forward to that is not otherwise offered.
Specialty Items
Happy hour is also an excellent opportunity to feature specialty items that are only available during certain times of the day. Using themes such as upcoming holidays is a very effective way to accomplish this, as patrons will always have something new to try out. Thanksgiving, for example, could be a great time to offer holiday-style turkey sliders with turkey and cranberry sauce that is reminiscent of a hearty harvest meal. Another excellent way to include specialty items is to use the flavors of the local culture to highlight what the neighborhood can offer. A coastal area in California, for example, can have a happy hour special that features fresh-caught fish tacos or California burrito bites alongside a craft beer from a local brewery. This is a great way for patrons to both enjoy their lunch and feel more connected to their surrounding community.
Contact a restaurant like Down the Hatch Maui to learn more about happy hour.