A customer's 2 word complaint made me redo my whole menu board

Last month a regular looked at my chalkboard menu, squinted, and said 'too busy.' I brushed it off at first, but then I counted 14 different items crammed in there with prices and little drawings. I spent a weekend cutting it down to 6 core drinks and 4 pastries, with bigger lettering and no decorations. Sales actually went up about 8% the next week because people stopped staring and just ordered. I still wonder if I lost some variety fans though. Did anyone else get criticism that stung but ended up being right? What did you change and did it help or hurt?

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1 Comment

kai_park12d ago

Man, that hits home. I had a regular tell me my sandwich board looked like a ransom note once. I had like 9 fonts going, arrows pointing everywhere. Cut it to black marker, white board, just the names and prices. People stopped asking what was in stuff, they just pointed and ordered. Turns out the decorations were hiding the actual food.