If you are relatively new in the business and aren’t entirely sure about most aspects of setting up a restaurant or a cafe, start small with a small budget. Let’s now assume yours is a cafe style establishment. If you have a certain cuisine in mind, go with it. If you aren’t quite sure about what the menu should be like, a few pointers could help you. There are some classic dishes you must have in your menu so you attract a wider section of customers. Don’t worry, it won’t be set in stone. There’s always time to add or revise your menu.

Let’s have a look at some of the dishes and styles of food your cafe menu should have.

Coffee

Yes, it seems like a no-brainer. But there are many cafes that are stuck with hot coffee, cold coffee and black coffee. You must evolve with time and trends. You don’t need to turn into a Starbucks, but you don’t have to drive your customers away with the lack of options on your menu for coffee either. If you can serve hot and iced coffee, you can pretty much extend the coffee section by adding at least another 6 or 7 options. Just brush through other cafes’ coffee sections. Get a few bottled flavours like caramel, hazelnut, mocha, vanilla, so on, and just run a few strands of them on a cappuccino with some whipped cream. Now you have a section that can gives you a wider margin of profit just with a few beverages. While we’re at it, if yours is a cafe and you don’t have a good coffee machine, invest in one.

Breads

There are many people who describe the bread served in a restaurant in there reviews. You can tell it’s important for your reputation. Good bread makes an average sandwich a really good one. It’s relatively forgivable if the filling is just passable, but not the buns. For the love of food, don’t go with the cheapest bread in the market or what your vendor is trying to push to you. Try out a few and get yourself some good bread even if it costs a few pennies more. As a cafe, your sandwiches will be one of the most frequently ordered dishes. If your bread isn’t up to mark, it’s going to be downhill from there.

Pizza

Pizza has grown to becomes heavily popular in cafes of late. It isn’t just thick bread like crust topped with a ridiculous number of toppings that clearly don’t belong together on one disc of dough. It also isn’t something that is only associated with ordering in. From the fancy upscale Italian restaurant, the pizza has travelled to the humble everyday cafes. The thin-crust ones with good tomato sauce, some chicken or veggies and cheese melted on top is a popular go-to dish for many cafe goers today. Pizza bases can be easily made in bulk and par baked. Once orders start pouring in, just add sauce and toppings, and off it goes into the oven.

Eggs

Most non-vegetarians love eggs. The best things about eggs is that it is so versatile. They would be a hit even when made for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Heck, there are restaurants that serve ONLY egg dishes. Moreover, many people in cities opt to go out for breakfast during weekends. It’s a great way to bring them into your cafe when you have a variety of egg dishes. From omelettes to poached eggs, scrambled to fried – there’s no dearth of ways to cook eggs for a meal. It’s fast, easy and almost always a winner with customers.

Dessert

No, just a dry old cake from yesterday won’t work. If you can’t afford a pastry chef, get local home bakers to sell you some of their baked goodies. Brownies, banana bread, apple pie and a good old fashioned chocolate cake is also a good place to start with desserts. A scoop of ice cream on the side and a drizzle of chocolate sauce works with almost every dessert so you can make it special. Mixed nuts, chocolate and caramel sauce, vanilla ice cream and icing sugar to dust – all the fixings you need to up your dessert game.

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Ultimately, it’s your cafe and you decide what goes up on the menu. A few dishes like the ones mentioned above are only a starting point to give you direction. This has worked for most successful cafe style establishments and are pretty much sure shot winners. One thing’s for sure, doing a little goes a long way, like dusting the banana bread with icing sugar or giving a mini cookie with coffee. When a customer smiles just looking at the food you serve, you know you’ve won more than half their heart.