Type of Institution

Each kind of operation has a different menu because each serves the needs of a different clientele.

• Hotels must provide a variety of services for their guests, from budget-minded tourists to businesspeople on expense accounts. Thus, their offerings may range from quick breakfast and sandwich counters to elegant dining rooms and banquet halls.
• Hospitals must satisfy the dietary needs of the patients.
• Schools must consider the ages of the students and their tastes and nutritional needs.
• Employee food services need menus that offer substantial but quickly served and reasonably priced food for working customers.
• Catering and banquet operations depend on menus that are easily prepared for large numbers but that are lavish enough for parties and special occasions.
• Fast-food and take-out quick-service operations require limited menus featuring inexpensive, easily prepared, easily served foods for people in a hurry.
• Full-service restaurants range from simple neighborhood diners to expensive, elegant restaurants. Menus, of course, must be planned according to the customers’ needs. A menu of high-priced, luxurious foods in a café situated in a working-class neighborhood will probably not succeed.