Raising spend per head doesn’t have to mean upselling diners with gimmicks or compromising your values. For chefs and restaurant managers who are genuinely committed to quality, the smartest strategies enhance the dining experience while increasing revenue. Whether you run a modern bistro, a fine dining restaurant, or a busy country pub, improving your average customer spend can drive better margins and long-term sustainability. So, here’s how to increase spend per head in a restaurant, without cutting corners.
How to increase average customer spend in a restaurant
Refine your menu design
Your menu is one of your most powerful tools to guide customer behaviour. Menu engineering can subtly influence decisions, drawing customers toward profitable dishes and premium items, while steering them away from lower-profit dishes. Here’s how:
- Remove currency symbols to reduce price sensitivity
- Use strategic “decoy pricing” to make mid-tier and your most expensive dishes more attractive
- Highlight your most profitable dishes with chef’s notes, icons, or standout menu positioning
Quick win: Feature one or two premium or signature dishes that showcase high-end ingredients or unique cooking methods. This can encourage higher spending without pushing customers too hard.
Enhance the dining experience with drinks
A strong drink program can increase spend per head significantly. Offer house cocktails and mocktails, beer and wine pairings, and even seasonal spritzes that complement your food.
Added value: Infuse alcoholic drinks with fresh herbs or produce (like cucumber, rhubarb, or even beetroot) for a cohesive, sensory-driven dining experience.
Maximise floor space and revenue
A well-designed restaurant floor plan can enhance spend per head by improving operational flow, increasing table turnover, and creating an inviting dining experience. Allocating around 60% of space to the dining area, while maintaining clear pathways and comfortable spacing, boosts efficiency and lets you serve more customers without compromising on the dining experience.
Quick tip: Strategic seating (like premium tables) can also help increase average customer spend.
Train front-of-house to sell with purpose
Attentive service is about giving customers thoughtful recommendations that align with their tastes and your goals, not just being polite.
- Train staff to upsell naturally by knowing the story behind dishes and ingredients
- Empower them to suggest add-ons like a side that pairs perfectly with their main, the best wine for the dish, or a sharing platter for the table
Practical tip: Talk to your team regularly. Explain dishes, how they’re prepared, where the produce comes from, what wine pairings work best, etc. This allows them to speak confidently about each dish, builds trust with customers, which can bring poor average customer spend up considerably.
Offer premium sides and enhancements
Sides don’t have to be boring. A well-crafted side dish can entice customers to order more while reinforcing your brand’s quality.
- Swap standard sides for exciting options that work with multiple dishes, like truffle mash, glazed carrots with tahini, or courgette tempura, for example
- Use add-ons to elevate mains – like seared scallops, heritage tomatoes, or aged cheese
The psychology behind it: Upscaled sides feel more like an indulgence than an expense.
Create limited-time specials
Tap into the power of urgency. Limited-time specials create FOMO and give regulars a reason to return. Here’s a few ways to create limited-time specials without breaking the bank:
- Use what’s fresh from your supplier
- Feature underused cuts or overstocked produce to increase total sales value
- Introduce experimental dishes to see what resonates before adding them to the core menu
Pro tip: Let everyone know about your specials and how long they’ll be around on social media and via email marketing.
Do market research to stay competitive
Solid market research helps boost average customer spend by aligning your offering with what your target market truly wants. Start by:
- Profiling your average customer, mapping dining habits, pain points, and preferences
- Gather insights via surveys, interviews, social listening, and POS data.
Keep a close eye on competitors’ positioning and trends. Use what you learn to refine your menu, pricing, and promotions. This will allow you to serve more customers, increase spend per head, and sharpen your competitive edge.
Dish refinement for a high-end feel
Sometimes, the fastest route to increasing average spend is through price increases. However, simply increasing prices can have the opposite effect, so it needs to be done delicately and with purpose. Instead of simply charging higher prices, rework existing dishes to feel more premium:
- Use elevated cooking methods (smoking, curing, sous vide)
- Add luxurious touches like infused oils or pickled garnishes, for example
If their favourite meals now feature heirloom vegetables, house ferments, or wild herbs, customers are more likely to pay more without hesitation.
Add a chef’s table or tasting experience
Offering a tasting menu or prix fixe menu gives your chefs full creative control and adds exclusivity to the experience.
Even if you’re a restaurant owner in a more casual setting, a “Trust the Chef” option or sharing platter for larger parties can significantly increase average customer spending.
Apply advanced dish costing to improve margins
Smart dish costing is a strategic tool to raise average order value and profitability. Use yield testing, seasonality, cross‑utilisation, and labour costing to optimise recipes. Refinement and pricing psychology (like anchor pricing and menu engineering) help you spotlight the most profitable dishes. Costing tools also guide inflation adjustments and fine‑tune margins without devaluing quality. It’s all about creating dishes that delight guests and enhance total sales value.
Utilise pre-set menus for groups
Group deals like prix-fixe or celebration menus make larger events efficient to plan and execute, and boost total sales.
- Include upgrade options (e.g., add a dessert or red wine pairing)
- Design tiered pricing levels to cater to different average customer budgets (you can employ decoy pricing here to sway groups into choosing higher-priced packages)
This helps with cross-selling, increasing average customer spending and helps chefs execute meals for larger parties because everything is pre-planned in advance.
Reward and upsell through loyalty
Encourage repeat visits with a well-designed loyalty program that subtly encourages upgrades.
- Double points on premium items or slow nights
- Exclusive offers for tasting nights or new menu launches
This drives customer retention and allows you to steadily raise your average customer spend over time.
Pro tip: Capture email addresses of your customers (either in the restaurant or on your website), then email them with special events and discount codes for slower nights.
Host experience-driven events
Ticketed events are a great way to draw customers in and boost spend per head. Here’s some examples:
- Chef and producer dinners
- Wine or drink pairings with storytelling
- Butchery or pasta-making demos
- Seasonal harvest or “ingredient showcase” nights
Customers are willing to pay more for a night that feels exclusive and memorable, especially when you go the extra mile. Events like these also create super fans of your restaurant who will tell everyone they know about how special the event was. Despite living in a tech-first world, word of mouth is still one of the most powerful marketing tools.
Sway with dynamic pricing
Use smart sales strategies to maximise average spend across different time slots:
- Weekday specials on tasting menus
- Seasonal pricing for high-demand ingredients
- Early-bird packages that upsell desserts or drinks
This increases total sales without reducing perceived value.
Create mini add-on menu items
Offering add-ons needs to be done carefully. However, we aren’t talking about adding bacon to your burger for an extra £1 here. We’re talking about menu items that aren’t part of a standard meal, but add a lot to a special one:
- Welcome bread with whipped butter
- Oysters or an amuse-bouche
- A cheese board or digestif
- Dessert “tasting bites” or petit fours
These encourage customers to treat themselves, especially if they’re presented as limited or chef-selected.
Design menus around high-quality, lower-cost ingredients
Vegetable-led dishes, house-made pastas, and whole grains can deliver impressive average order value with much better margins than expensive meats.
With the right produce, you can:
- Build show-stopping dishes with vibrant veg
- Use extra supplies creatively to boost sales
- Offer variety while protecting margins
These types of dishes can help to reduce waste, increase your offering and keep costs down. You just need the right produce supplier to ensure you’re getting the best quality ingredients.
Elevate the first and last touchpoints
Spend per head rises when guests feel like they’re getting a full experience.
- Greet tables with a mini aperitif, flavoured sparkling water or prosecco if budget allows
- End meals with a complimentary chocolate, tea, or digestif recommendation
These small gestures add tangible value and create emotional lift, boosting both customer retention and average customer spending.
Track success and refine regularly
To understand what’s working, you need to break down your total sales:
- Simply divide total sales into categories: starters, mains, desserts, drinks, and sides
- Monitor customers served, average spend per head, and which dishes are performing best
By staying on top of your average customer spend, you can adjust faster, price more intelligently, and refine your menu within each season to maximise profit year-round.
The bigger picture: quality, consistency, and trust
Every one of these strategies to increase spend per head depends on trust. Trust in your team, your systems, and especially your suppliers. A reliable produce partner is vital for:
- Inspiring seasonal specials and menu updates
- Providing consistent quality produce for your menus
- Supporting storytelling that builds customer loyalty
- Helping you make better margin decisions in line with your broader goals
All Greens offers the freshest fruit and vegetables in London. We’ve been trusted by chefs and restaurant managers across the city for over 20 years to deliver the best produce possible. Become a customer today and find out why 100s of chefs across London trust All Greens to deliver the produce that powers their most creative, profitable dishes.
