New Menu Item Development Checklist

Write a one-paragraph brief: target guest, daypart (lunch, dinner, brunch, late-night), price band, and the gap on the current menu the item fills. The Culinary Director owns the brief; the GM signs off.

Pull the last 90 days of sales mix from Toast or Square. Identify which category the new item competes with and what it might cannibalize. Note items with declining attach rates that the new dish could replace.

Photograph or screenshot comparable items from three to five nearby competitors. Note their price, portion, and presentation so pricing and plating decisions later are grounded in the local market, not abstraction.

Sous chef and chef de partie session: list 3-5 directions for the brief. Score each on equipment fit (do we have the right station?), prep complexity, and ingredient availability through current distributors (Sysco, US Foods, PFG, local).

Use weights (grams or ounces), not volume. Include yield, portion size, plating diagram, and allergen flags (gluten, dairy, soy, egg, tree nut, peanut, shellfish, fish, sesame). The recipe card is the source of truth for costing, training, and line execution.

Plate three to five versions for the exec chef, sous, and GM. Time the cook from fire to pass — items over 12 minutes a la carte rarely survive a Friday rush. Capture written feedback per version.

Have a line cook (not the chef) prepare the dish from the recipe card alone — this exposes ambiguous instructions and unrealistic plating. Update the card until the line cook hits the target plate without coaching.

Identify shared fryers, shared cutting boards, and shared sauté pans. Document the dedicated-tools path for any allergen-flagged version. The PCFP-certified manager reviews and signs off before the dish goes to staff training.

Define the modifier path on the POS for allergy tickets — dedicated board, gloves changed, separate fry oil where required. Brief the expediter on how the ticket prints and where it stages on the pass.

Use MarginEdge or R365 to apply current invoice pricing to each ingredient on the recipe card. Include yield loss (trim, cook loss) — raw cost without yield understates the plate by 10-25% on protein-heavy dishes.

Target food cost percentage for the category (typically 28-34% for entrees, 18-25% for apps, 15-20% for desserts, 22% for cocktails). Check the price against the competitor scan from the research phase — a $4 premium over comps needs a story.

Estimate weekly covers for the new dish and the dish it most likely cannibalizes. Net contribution margin (price minus plate cost, times forecast covers) tells the owner whether the launch grows the P&L or just rearranges it.

Request samples and quotes from at least two distributors. Confirm delivery windows fit the kitchen's receiving schedule — a Tuesday-only drop for a Friday-feature dish is a chronic 86 risk. Collect W-9 and COI before the first PO.

Add new SKUs to MarginEdge, R365, or MarketMan. Set opening par based on forecast covers plus a 20% buffer for week one. Update the prep sheet so the AM prep cook sees the new item on the morning par walk.

Build the item in Toast, Square, or Aloha with the correct category, tax code, and printer routing (cold line vs. hot line vs. expo). Configure modifiers, sub paths, and the allergen flag. Test a dummy ring on the back-office terminal before staff training.

One page: dish name, description as it should be sold tableside, ingredients, allergens, pairing recommendation, and the two questions guests will ask. Servers and bartenders carry this in their book through week one.

Sous chef walks each station through fire-to-pass on the new dish. Cook three covers back-to-back to expose timing bottlenecks at the salamander or fry well. Adjust station mise en place before the FOH tasting.

Every server, bartender, host, and runner tastes the dish — they cannot sell what they haven't eaten. Cover the description, allergens, modifier paths, and the pairing the bar will push. Quiz at the end of pre-shift the next day.

Print updated menus, push the change to the website, and update Toast Online Ordering, ChowNow, DoorDash, UberEats, and Grubhub. Third-party platforms can take 24-48 hours to publish — start with them, not last.

Plate to spec, natural light, on the actual service plateware. Upload to Instagram, Google Business Profile, and Yelp before the launch shift — review-platform photos drive trial more reliably than paid ads at small-operator scale.

GM works the floor; exec chef expedites. Track ticket times for the new dish against the rest of the line — if it stretches the average by more than 90 seconds during the rush, plan a station-balancing tweak before the weekend.

Managers do table touches on every ticket that ordered the new dish for the first two weeks. Mine Google, Yelp, OpenTable, and Resy reviews for mentions. Log direct comments by category: flavor, portion, price, presentation.

Compare actual covers to the forecast, and actual food cost percentage to the target set during pricing. A variance over 3 points typically signals portioning drift on the line or an unexpected yield issue — investigate before adjusting the menu price.

Exec chef and GM meet to make the call. Adjust covers the common case — tweak the recipe, plating, or price. 86 is reserved for dishes failing on cost and guest reception together. Document the decision so the next development cycle starts with a clear precedent.