Why Restaurant's Menu is Printed Daily?

By Jian Shuo Wang on 2010-02-21 23:36 · San Jose

When people travel, they use fresh eyes to ask silly questions that is not often noticed by local people. That is one reason why people travel.

I have my question of today: When I had dinner at California Cafe at Stanford Barn 700 Welch Road Palo Alto, CA 94304 (recommended by Yelp), I noticed that they have Feb 20, 2010 printed on the header of the menu. That is what we often find out in nice restaurants here in the States (and now in Shanghai).

Why they did it? Is the main reason coming from changed menu dishes, or just to let people feel more special?

2 Comments

I think there are lots of reasons. Some restaurants have regular customers and those people want different meals each night. Or the cook may want to make one special new dish instead of just the same old thing.

But often there are regular menus and then "specials" or "du jour" (of the day) additions. So I can't really answer your question, unless the Feb. 20th menu is nearly the same as the Feb 27th menu will be.

Another question is why so many Chinese restaurants in the US have menus with more than 100 dishes listed. That is just too many, and almost every customer will order a few regular dishes and maybe one or two new ones without having any idea what they are going to get in the new ones.

— zjemi · 2010-02-22 01:22

Er...because the chef only puts on the menu what he can buy fresh at the market each morning you moron.

— Jamie Oliver · 2010-02-22 16:50