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Bar menu engineering: which drinks are stars, plowhorses, puzzles and dogs?
Every drink is either popular or not, and profitable or not. The four boxes tell you what to do with each one.
Skip the reading. The tool does this maths for you, free, as you type.
Sort your drink listMenu engineering sorts every drink by two things: how much of it sells, and how much margin each one leaves. Popular and profitable is a star. Popular but thin is a plowhorse. Profitable but ignored is a puzzle. Neither is a dog. Each box has a fix.
The formula
Margin = price − cost per drink (pour, mixer and garnish). Average margin = Σ(margin × sold) ÷ total sold. A drink is popular if its share of sales is at least 70% of an equal share (the Kasavana–Smith rule), and profitable if its margin is at or above the average.
What to do with each box
Protect it. Keep it off happy hour, keep the pour consistent, list it first.
Raise it 50 cents to a dollar, or move it to a cheaper spirit, wine or keg. Nobody will notice.
Rename it, move it up the drink list, have bartenders push it. If that fails, drop it.
Take it off and free the shelf or tap line, unless a regular would walk.
What to do about it
- Run it on a full month of sales, not a weekend.
- Use real pour costs from your bottle prices. A guessed cost puts drinks in the wrong box.
- Re-run it every quarter. Supplier prices move drinks between boxes.
Now do it with your numbers.
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Sort your drink list