Plot every menu item on two axes: gross profit dollars per dish, and units sold last quarter. You get four quadrants:
- Stars (high GP$, high sales) — don’t change.
- Workhorses (low GP$, high sales) — reformulate or reprice.
- Sleepers (high GP$, low sales) — push.
- Dogs (low GP$, low sales) — kill.
How to push the sleepers
Top of menu, top-right corner of page (eye-tracking studies put gaze there first). Servers trained to recommend them when asked. Box around the description. Sometimes a small reformulation makes a sleeper a star — increase the visible value without raising the cost (better plating, garnish, one premium ingredient).