I’ve been really into food and cooking lately and I’m coming up with some ideas for my own restaurants! I actually started a menu when we were in Hawaii last year, I was inspired by/copied some ideas from places we went! 😂
I was starting another type of menu recently and I liked the ideas I had and was taking from that Hawaii one so I decided to come up with a breakfast, lunch and dinner, sort of an ocean style restaurant. It was inspired by places in Hawaii and Florida. The idea is the restaurant would be in either of those places but would also have some Midwest menu items more personal to me. That would make for a kinda cool story with me being from the Midwest.
I really enjoyed coming up with all these menu items, it was very fun! I’m pretty glad with how they all turned out. There’s some of my go-toes and personal favorites, some I added because they sounded really yummy to me, some I liked their idea even if it wouldn’t be my personal favorite food. But I like their whole vibe.
I’m pretty happy with how the design ended up, maybe not my favorite vibe or execution but it’s good! I had a hard time with the kids menu design, not my favorite on that but that’s okay.
I’m also in the process of making some ingredient lists, lists of things they have to make every day or homemade, list of staff, what the different chefs jobs would be and assigning the chefs to each meal- how it would be accomplished. It’s very fun for me. I’m hoping to share that in another post!
- What’s something you liked about it (and why)? I liked coming up with all the menu items to include! I looked up some specific restaurants we had been to that I was remembering, especially for particular dishes I was thinking of, which was fun! I really liked my initial process of coming up with the ideas. I liked how I could add anything I wanted! Again, it wasn’t all things that would be my favorite to eat but I liked the vibe. It definitely helped with the fact that this is a breakfast, lunch and dinner restaurant. After I came up with the ideas, I typed them all up in the menu document which I really enjoyed coming up with the descriptions and deciding which ingredients to go in the items. It’s partly because I like food as well as management, those things together are awesome for me!
- What’s something you disliked about it (and why)? I didn’t like all of the designing process, it was a lot of pressure to get the design and look of it to match the vibe I wanted in my head and I wasn’t really sure what the vibe I wanted was! I tried a ton of fonts at the beginning. And again, the kids menu was a challenge to get that how I wanted and it didn’t really turn out in my favorite way. I think I would add more games and pictures and not have it as “pretty”. I don’t care as much about it though. 😂
- What was your biggest takeaway or lesson? Maybe just seeing how much I enjoy some of these things and how much I like food too! Also seeing how I want to do more cooking in real life. However, we cooked a meal recently- I’d have to do more but I’m not sure how much of the actually cooking that I like. I do enjoy that, but there’s more too I think.
- What is something you’re curious to learn more about as a result of this experience? I’d like to do some more cooking in real life and learn more about that! I’d also like to keep making menus and coming up with restaurant models, and then gathering ideas for food and menu items that sound good!
Check out the menu here:
Thank you!
Lucy