Customers don’t see restaurant walls the way they used to. They enjoy a good meal when they sit at the bar, and they like ordering from the bar appetizer menu in the dining room.
Let this crossover appeal serve as inspiration for pub menu ideas that work in your restaurant’s dining room and its tap room. When you make guests happy wherever they’re seated, you make sure they come back again.
Pub Food Menu Ideas That Make Customers Cheer
From irresistible appetizers to gastropub fare, almost anything goes on a well-designed pub menu. If it fits in the small plate category, it’s a good fit for updating your restaurant’s bar menu.
Smaller portions also help boost profit margins. You don’t have to set out bowls of peanuts to hold down food costs with these 10 pub food menu ideas.
1. Keep Bar Appetizers Quick And Easy
Gourmet popcorn only takes a few minutes from start to serving. Olive assortments bathed in house marinades are delivered as quickly as they’re ordered. Even nachos move from oven to customer in record time. Keeping appetizers quick and easy keeps restaurant guests happy.
2. Make The Most Of Bar Food Classics
Every classic pub food menu features fries, rings, wings and sliders. Make these favorites better by making them from scratch. Use quality russets for French fries, and spice up onion rings with a Southern accent. Offer wings and sliders with a variety of savory sauces and toppings.
3. Put Delicious New Twists On Traditions
Put your culinary creativity to work on reimagining traditional pub fare. Upgrade crunchy bar snacks with crispy Brussels sprout chips. Surprise customers by serving sirloin and lamb sliders nestled in fresh bruschetta buns.
4. Market Your House Specialties
Housemade condiments transform bar menu offerings into uniquely marketable house specialties. Top sliders, sandwiches and po’ boys with housemade mustards, mayos and remoulades. Enjoy compliments from happy guests dipping fries, rings and wings into from-scratch catsup and signature hot sauces.
5. Treat Guests To Regional Favorites
Mix up the menu by rotating different sandwiches renowned for regional flavors. Celebrate New Orleans with shrimp po’ boys one week, and head north with Philly cheesesteaks the next. From California BLTAs to Texas barbecue, treat customers to a revolving road trip via your pub menu.
6. Highlight Healthy Menu Options
Bar food menu ideas can easily include healthy options that appeal to everyone. Elevate the nutritional profile of pizzas with all-vegetable toppings and gluten-free crusts. Invite all dietary preferences to pull up a bar stool by serving a variety of tasty veggie burgers.
7. Go With Gastro Pub Food Ideas
You don’t need a gourmet bar menu to embrace the gastropub concept. Housemade pretzels, steamed mussels and scotch eggs are just a few gastropub classics. This style of bar food is wonderfully open to culinary interpretation.
8. Make Holidays Bite-Size
Make holidays merrier for pub customers with bite-size menu sensations celebrating different seasons. Ring in the New Year with shrimp cocktail shots and champagne cupcakes. Decorate boiled quail eggs for Easter, fire up jalapeno poppers on the Fourth of July, and bake mini crab cakes for Christmas.
9. Consider Cocktail Parings
It’s simple to pair red wines and pasta or whites and seafood. It’s just as easy to match a perfect martini to a perfect flavor. With your guidance and a little menu planning, cocktail pairing encourages restaurant guests to explore the complements and contrasts that make matching drinks and food so much fun.
10. Audition Your Happy Hour Menu
Let customers help you with bar menu decisions. Capture their interest and their business by holding regular taste auditions. Try out everything from gastropub dishes to sports bar food ideas. Turn one Happy Hour each month into your pub’s version of The People’s Choice complete with winning dishes and guest prizes.
We Always Enjoy Sharing
Restaurant customers enjoy variety and appreciate choices. Give them plenty of dining room and bar menu options that aren’t confined by walls. A full-service approach to guest satisfaction pays off with positive reviews and increased sales.
We hope you enjoy our variety of fresh menu ideas and trending industry news. There aren’t many walls here in our corner of the foodservice sector, so we’re in a great position to share. From business inspiration to Brussels sprouts and other premium produce, you can depend on Hitchcock Farms to serve you with our very best.
