Customers are the lifeblood of your business, but that doesn't mean they're always as quick as you'd like them to be. For example, when you introduce new items on your menu, they might not even realize it because they're accustomed to ordering certain dishes. To help them find out just how creative you are and how innovative your menu is, you might want to use menu clips in your cafe or coffee shop. Clearly marking what's new and improved will help you bring more attention to your restaurant as a whole -- and it might just get your customers caught up to your fantastic ideas.

Clipping on the Table

Using menu clips on individual tables is not a new idea, of course. But it's certainly an effective idea. When you want to showcase specials or the soup of the day, you can let your menu clips do the talking. This can also help if you have a particularly ditzy server on the schedule too.

These clips can include everything from the nightly specials to dessert suggestions and wine lists. Try to keep the pieces of paper simple so that the customer has time to read them while the server is getting their drinks and make sure to switch up the information occasionally to help show customers that this is something they should read each time they come in.

Clipping in the Case

When you have pastry cases or a hot bar setup, you might want to use menu clips to showcase the current dishes of the day. This is going to save you time when you have the customer who can't seem to identify dishes on their own, even if it's clearly spaghetti. Take small pieces of paper, print the dish name and price on them, and then laminate them to be used again and again. Make sure your staff places these menu clips with clearly visible names and prices of the foods out front of the serving dishes to make the line move more quickly and easily. On the backs of these pieces of paper, you can have serving instructions for your staff too to help keep portions and servings consistent.

Clipping at Eye Level

If you have your restaurant arranged so that the customer has to come up to a counter or register, you can use menu clips to showcase specials they might want to try. Just print out the special clearly and place into the clip. This clip should be put at eye level to make sure the customer sees what their options are.

Menu clips are a simple way to showcase signs for your customer without having to tape them to the walls or pin them to the uniforms of your servers. Use bright colors and clear print to make sure they're hard to miss -- even if the customer is in another world.