Building the menu for a small café: the fewest ingredients and the fastest drinks

This is part 3 of our 7-part series Opening a café: from idea to first day. Earlier: the concept and the one-page plan and choosing a location.

A first menu is a promise about speed and consistency as much as taste. Every item needs ingredients to order and store, a station to make it at, a recipe someone has to learn, and a minute or two of someone's time at the busiest hour. A long menu multiplies all of that.

This post is about building a menu a small team can make quickly and the same way every time. Pricing and costing have their own posts, linked below.

Start with the ingredient list, not the item list

Write down every ingredient you're willing to stock. Then build items from that list, instead of picking items and discovering what they need.

For a hypothetical espresso bar, the list might start like this:

Every new ingredient on that list means another vendor line, another shelf, another date to check and another thing that can run out. Before adding one, ask: how many items use it? An ingredient used in one item is a candidate to cut.

Build drinks as a grid

Espresso drinks are mostly the same parts in different amounts: shots, milk, texture, size, flavor. Treat the drink menu as a grid instead of a list:

• Base: espresso, filter, cold brew, tea.
• Milk and texture: none, a little, a lot; steamed, foamed, cold.
• Size: two sizes are easier to train and stock than three.
• Flavor: one of a few syrups, or none.

The grid gives you a full menu from a short ingredient list, and the add-ons (an extra shot, a different milk, a syrup) become modifiers with their own price instead of new drinks.

Keep one or two signature drinks for the concept. Make sure each one uses ingredients already on the list.

Time every item at the bar

Your concept probably promises something about speed. Check it with a stopwatch before opening:

1. Set up the bar the way it will be on day one.
2. Have each barista make every drink three times. Time from the ticket to the handoff.
3. Write down the slowest step for each drink: steaming, a second milk, blending, a pour-over.
4. Make a peak-hour order mix (several lattes and drip, an iced drink, a pastry) and time the whole batch.

Items that are slow and rarely ordered are the easiest to cut. Items that are slow and popular need a better setup: batched cold brew, a second grinder, pre-portioned syrups, a dedicated steaming position. Our morning rush post covers the line and the stations.

Keep food simple to start

Food is where small cafés grow complicated fastest. A few questions decide how much kitchen you need:

• Bought in or made here? Pastries from a bakery need a case and a delivery routine. Baking on site needs ovens, a mixer, staff time at 5 am and a production schedule.
• Assembled or cooked? Toasts and cold sandwiches need a toaster or a press and a cold well. Eggs and anything fried need more equipment, and possibly a hood.
• Raw or undercooked? Soft eggs or anything served undercooked needs a consumer advisory on the menu. See consumer advisory wording.
• Held hot? Anything kept warm needs to stay hot, with temperature checks. See hot-holding and cooling.

Starting with assembled or bought-in food is a common way to open smaller, and you can add a cooked item once the bar runs smoothly.

The menu goes into your plans

The menu isn't only a marketing document. In the FDA Food Code, which most state and local food rules are based on, the plans you submit before building a food establishment include, as required by the regulatory authority, the "Intended menu" and the "Anticipated volume of FOOD to be stored, prepared, and sold or served" (FDA Food Code 2022, §8-201.12). Your health department uses the menu to judge what equipment, sinks and storage you need, so a later change to the menu can mean a change to the plans. Ask your local office how they handle menu changes after approval.

The menu also writes your equipment list, which is part 4.

Cost it before you print it

Every item needs a plate cost before it gets a price: the cost of each ingredient for one serving, including the cup, the lid and the sleeve. Our food cost and menu pricing post walks through costing and pricing from a target. For prices later on, see raising menu prices.

A few checks before you lock the prices:

• Modifiers have a cost too. An extra shot and a plant milk cost you something every time.
• Packaging adds up. Cold cups, lids and straws can cost more than a hot drink's.
• Waste is part of cost. A pastry that sells out at 11 is cheaper than one thrown out at close. Our waste log post shows how to track it.

Allergens and labeling

Write down the allergens in every item from day one, including milks, syrups, spreads and bakery items whose labels you don't control. Our allergen matrix template covers the nine major US allergens and how to keep the chart current.

On calorie labeling: the federal menu labeling rule applies to a "Covered establishment", which "means a restaurant or similar retail food establishment that is a part of a chain with 20 or more locations doing business under the same name" and selling substantially the same menu (21 CFR 101.11(a)). A single café usually isn't one, although smaller businesses can register voluntarily. States and cities can have their own menu rules, so check with yours.

A menu worksheet

Before you finalize the menu, fill in one line per item:

Items that add several new ingredients, take a long time or carry a high plate cost need a good reason to stay.

Where Mays fits

• Recipes with a cost. In Inventory → Recipes, each recipe is one serving with its ingredients, quantities and a Yield %. Mays prices them from your vendor prices and shows Cost, Cost % and Margin, and the list shows a cost % above 35% in red. See Recipes and plate costing.
• Menu lists and modifiers. Group recipes into lists such as Drinks and Food, each with a Target cost % to compare with its actual blended cost, and cost the add-ons, like an extra shot, as Modifiers. See Menu lists and modifiers.
• Recipe cards your team can read. Put each recipe card in the Knowledge Base, so staff can read it in the app. See Knowledge base basics.
• Drinks per hour, after opening. With Square connected, the Forecast page's Unit forecast counts the items you pick by hour and shows the peak hour, which tells you which drinks to batch.

What Mays doesn't do yet: you can't see or edit allergens on a recipe, so the allergen chart is a document you keep up to date yourself.

Your menu checklist

• An ingredient list first, and every item built from it
• Drinks as a grid, add-ons as priced modifiers, one or two signatures
• Every item timed at the bar; slow, rarely ordered items cut
• Food you can make with the equipment and staff you'll have
• The menu shared with the health department as part of your plans
• A plate cost and a price for every item, including packaging
• Allergens written down for every item

Next: the equipment

The menu decides what goes on the counter. Part 4 is the equipment list and the bar layout. When you're ready, start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Or book a walkthrough and we'll cost your first menu with you.