Cafe Menu Template

Boasting easy-to-use tools, the cafe free menu templates available on Menuzen allow for a relatively quick menu creation process. When looking for cafe menu design ideas, all you need to do is to select a suitable template and make a few tweaks, like uploading pictures of your cafe and food and drink options. Other modifications for your modern menu include adding prices and short descriptions, and you’re well on your way to crafting an excellent menu for your cafe that’s sure to convert customers.

Should your cafe have a hero dish or drink with high profitability that you want your customers to notice, you should consider adopting menu psychology. A good way of ensuring increased sales of these hero dishes and drinks with menu psychology is to position them at the menu’s centre. Menu psychology has it that this is one of the few spots customers’ eyes focus on when observing a menu.

Food trends are constantly dynamic; as such, cafes across countries and continents offer different beverages and meals.

Still, some remain constant across different settings, three of which are discussed below:

1. Espresso Coffee

If your menu lacks a good espresso, competing in the cafe industry will be challenging. Although not everyone is passionate about espressos, many coffee drinkers are extreme fans.

Several techniques are employed commercially in preparing espresso, of which an espresso machine is the easiest. After purging the machine of the previous use, pour the carefully selected coffee beans into the portafilter and allow the machine to do the grinding, filtering, and tamping. While the final product depends on your machine setting and the beans you use, generally, it shouldn’t be too dark or light, nor excessively bitter or acidic.

2. Doughnuts

Doughnuts are a popular meal option in cafes since they go well with hot drinks. The idea behind this combo is that doughnuts complement the coffee-drinking experience and act as a snack for people looking for more than a drink. However, before you create a cafe menu, it’s crucial to master the art of making doughnuts — which we’ll outline below.

To prepare these tasty goodies, ingredients include flour, sugar, salt, shortening, eggs, yeast, milk, and oil (for frying). To prepare doughnuts, begin by soaking yeast in warm water for activation, then introduce flour, salt, sugar, milk, eggs, and shortening before mixing properly until they’re all well incorporated and become glossy. Next, proceed with the kneading process until you achieve a smooth texture; cover it for a while and let it rise until it’s twice its size. The next step is rolling the dough into a ½-inch thickness and creating a shape using a doughnut cutter. Lastly, allow the doughnuts to rise again; deep fry and glaze afterwards.

3. Latte

Although another serving suggestion for coffee, a latte differs dramatically from an espresso. Possibly the major reason why some prefer latte over coffee, latte includes milk, offering a distinct creamy taste.

To make a latte, you only need a few ingredients — milk and espresso coffee. First, use a clean steam arm to foam ⅓ milk jugs’ worth of milk (whole, skimmed, oat, almond, etc.). Once the milk has foamed smoothly, tap the jug on the side to remove large air bubbles. Pour the heated milk into the cup of espresso, and if you can add a bit of latte art, you should! Consider taking a great picture of your prepared latte featuring exquisite latte art for use in your cafe menu template of choice.

A cafe is only complete when it offers complimentary dishes or meal options in addition to the several drinks at its disposal.

Below are some of the authentic dishes at a cafe:

1. Sandwiches and Burgers

Sandwiches enjoy great demand among coffee drinkers, so it’s only normal to include them in your cafe menu. While numerous food items classify as a sandwich, we’ll focus on burgers.

To prepare a burger, start by whisking the egg and seasonings together in a bowl. Then, introduce the bread crumbs and ground beef before forming the mixture into patties. Place the patties on a preheated grill and cook each side for 6–8 minutes afterwards. Ensure the beef’s temperature reads at least 70°C on cooking. Finish it by topping it with condiments like mustard, ketchup, and mayo for optimal flavour.

2. Espresso Cookies

These are one of the many desserts sold at cafes, and your joint would be somewhat lacking if you fail to consider them in your cafe menu design process. To prepare, you need ingredients like espresso, milk, baking soda, flour, unsweetened cocoa powder, kosher salt, butter, eggs, pure vanilla extract, brown sugar, semisweet chocolate chip, and flaky sea salt.

Start by preheating your oven. Combine milk and espresso powder in a bowl and stir until dissolved; in another bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, flour, salt, and baking soda; whisk together butter and sugar in a separate bowl. Afterwards, add egg and whisk until lightened in colour, followed by espresso mixture and vanilla, whisking until combined. Then, add the dry ingredients and mix continuously, followed by the introduction of chocolate chips, stirring until you achieve sufficient combination. Scoop dough onto baking sheets apart from each other, top with flaky sea salt and bake for 10 minutes. Allow the edges to set before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool.

3. Small Bites (Pies)

Bites are popular in cafes, but we’ll focus on meat pie here. To prepare this meal option for inclusion in your chosen cafe menu template, you need ingredients like peeled and cubed tomato, ground beef and pork, seasonings, water, and pie crust.

Begin by preheating the oven to 220°C. Then, introduce the potato into a pan containing water and cook until tender. Afterwards, drain the potato, and mash it. Crumble ground pork and beef into another pan, introduce seasonings and stir in some water. Allow to cook on moderate heat with continuous stirring until meat has achieved even browning; turn off the heat and mix in mashed potato.

Place a pie crust into a pie plate, introduce the meat mixture as filling, and place another pie crust over it. Ensure to trim any extra dough before crimping the pie crust’s edges with a fork’s tines. Prick the top crust in a few places to allow for steam escape before covering the crust’s edge with aluminium foil. Place the pie into a preheated oven, and bake for about 25 minutes until the crust is browned.

The typical flavours in cafe food or drink are from coffee beans, caramel, cloves, soy sauce, potato, mushrooms, coconut, vanilla, garlic, onions, pepper, and salt. In some cases, there’s a combination of more than one to produce a desired flavour.

While it’s true that cafes offer different meal and drink options across different regions, coffee is one item that’s never missing from a cafe’s menu. Hence, we can conclude that coffee is the typical “food” sold in cafe shops. Others include sandwiches, doughnuts, meat pies, etc.

When you create your cafe restaurant menu, consider going for a two-column layout featuring food and drinks on one side and prices on the other. However, be sure to classify your creative menu items into different sections, like drinks, sandwiches, bites, pizzas, etc. After selecting your preferred template, introduce high-quality images of your food options, write short descriptions, add prices, and make any other adjustments as you deem fit.