We eat with our eyes first. So, why do restaurants give us their verbal menus to order from?
Everything else
Just about everything we do in life, we always cast our eyes on the subject first. Then we make decisions.
Usually, once we've seen the subject with our eyes, we then proceed to engage our additional senses in our repertoire. This includes smell, listen, touch, and where appropriate, taste follows last.
To give you an example of what I mean and the context of our sensory engagements, let's look at the following. Something we're all very familiar with.
Scene A – Buying shoes
How often have you walked into a shoe shop and requested to see a Lined Item Catalogue listing by SKU categories, colour and pricing with different options? Hmmm, let me think. NEVER!
See
The first thing you do when you walk-in to a shoe store, you cast your eyes wide and deep, like a kid in a candy store, and you move in a direction your heart leads you.
Maybe you apply some level of sanity and approach the store left-to-right, or right-to-left, or some zig-zag pattern, but most likely your eyes do the wandering and your heart does all the pulling.
Once you've locked your eyes onto the shoes you like, you then proceed to ask to try the pair on with the right size.
Touch & Smell
Once you are handed the shoe pair, you then proceed to touch it, maybe you smell them to make sure it's real leather and not some faux pas substitute. Then, once you move on to try them, you walk a few steps and check to see how you feel in them.
Listen
If the shoes don't squeak as you walk and you're either happy with how they look, you will definitely proceed to buy them. Otherwise, you'll move on to your next choice in line.
DISCLAIMER: You may have noticed we only used 4 of the 5 senses. The last one, the taste, clearly isn't gonna work. The important part to focus on is the purchasing pattern.
Scene B – Ordering food from display cabinet
When you feel like a quick bite to eat you may duck into a takeaway place with a big display cabinet full of food.
What is the first thing you do?
"May I have your menu please?" Errrr... No, I didn't think so.
You let your eyes do the wondering, and you let your heart speak on behalf of your stomach so you can place the order.
Needless to say, once you get your item, you'll use all your other senses very naturally — touch, smell, listen, and finally taste.
All 5 senses engaged. Maximum experience!
Why do restaurants challenge us?
The very fact that we face these ordering scenarios very often, when it comes to food in restaurants, we have become so numb about the overall process that majority of us are oblivious and simply don't think about it.
Why is it that when you go shoe shopping you are not handed a line item price list catalogue before you decide which pair of shoes to buy? Shirts? Jeans? Accessories?
The power of visuals have the ability to communicate to us at 1000 words a second — yet restaurants love to impose on us to read, imagine and understand some of their verbal, word menu sorcery.
In a nut shell
Displaying photos of the food has the power to short circuit the time it takes us to place our food orders.
My suggestion to restaurants is to cut down on the words and share more of the food photos.
Invest in some time, effort and quality cameras. Or, better still, engage professionals to handle your food menu shoot.
You will engage every one of our sensory glands, and best of all, we may even order more than we can handle.
Some of us have big eyes and we want to satisfy our curiosity by ordering all of your wonderful food on offer — especially if it looks good.
The outcome will only lead to satiating our appetites and deepening of your pockets, while we hope our waistlines don't expand horizontally at the same time.
'Till next time...
Bon appetite!
FOOTNOTES
- "Leather Shoes Display" — Photo by Dương Trần Quốc on Unsplash.
- "Dessert Display Cabinet" — Photo by Igor Ovsyannykov on Unsplash.