How-to-Yelli: Menu Tests

In this article: How to build, issue and grade automatically generated menu tests in Yelli.

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Menu knowledge is a priority when it comes to training restaurant staff. Your menu is your product, and your team has to know it thoroughly to be able to sell it!

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Training on menu knowledge usually takes up the majority of training time. Think about hiring a veteran industry member - they already know the industry standards, but they need to know how to sell your product, along with your company-specific SOP’s.

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Making menu training efficient comes down to providing the correct information to your team, and then their ability to memorize it and be confident enough to take a test, and of course serve your guests. 

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So, step one is to create a detailed menu guide.

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Creating a Detailed Menu Guide

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You can use an excel sheet, word document, or even this menu matrix template. Whatever you do, don’t use the guest menu! Your team needs way more information than the name and price of each item.

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Side note - you’d be surprised how many restaurants don’t provide their team a detailed menu guide and expect them to know detailed information.

Related: Menu Guide: Why Every Restaurant Needs One

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Yelli was built as a platform to easily create your menu guide in a handy flashcard format. Log in to your Yelli account (or sign up here) and then navigate to the Food or Drink menus to start adding your menu information.

Related: How-To-Yelli: Building Menus

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Learning the Menu

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Now that you have a detailed menu guide for your team to learn from, it’s their turn to do the work and memorize it. 

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Over the course of their training they will talk about the menu, ask questions, see menu items as they serve them or work with the BOH team, and hopefully spend some time studying the old-fashioned way - by writing them down over and over, or making flashcards to quiz themselves.

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The great thing about using Yelli is that your team instantly has the most up to date information in flashcard format right on their smartphone, leaving no excuse when it comes to mastering menu knowledge.

Related: Server Tips: Mastering Menu Knowledge

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Menu Tests

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Now it’s time to decide how you want to test trainees on menu information. 

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In our experience, a blank menu guide is the most thorough and effective way to gauge menu knowledge. It might not be the easiest test they ever take, but they will need to know the details!

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Yelli creates blank menu tests automatically, based on the menus you create in the Food and Drink menu sections. You’ll see the Menu Based tests under the Issue tab of your testing suite:

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How to Issue Menu Tests

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To issue a menu test, simply select the test and choose which team members you want to issue the tests to. You can select all team members, certain departments, or individuals. 

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Once confirmed, those team members will receive a notification and will be able to take the test.

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Taking a Menu Test

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Team members will be able to take a menu test on either the desktop or mobile app. They won’t be able to leave the test after clicking “Begin” in order to keep them from finding the answers - No peeks allowed!

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Once they begin the test, they will see all of the individual menu items in that menu category, and they can select each item to fill in their answers. 

You’ll want to set the expectation beforehand on how much information you expect them to submit. Should the card perfectly match what they’ve been studying from? Focus on ingredients and allergies? This part is up to you.

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Once the team member is done, they can submit the test by clicking on Complete.

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Reviewing Menu Test Results

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Once the menu test has been submitted, managers who have testing notifications enabled (you can update this in the Settings menu) will receive a notification that there are new results to review.

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Review individual team member results by going to the Roster, selecting their profile, and then selecting Test Results.

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Menu tests are manually graded to account for typos and other errors. As you review each item you’ll be able to leave comments that the team member will then be able to review.

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You can also review test results sorted by the test itself. So if you want to see how everyone did on the Appetizers test, navigate to Test > Results > Appetizers Test. All team members who have completed the test will show and you can review their results.

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The latest attempt at a menu test will store the team members profile. To re-issue a test, go back to Issue and follow the steps to reissue the test.

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Conclusion

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Menu knowledge is a critical part of your staff training program. The only way your team will be able to master the menu and upsell the way you want them to is if they have the tools to do so!

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Make sure you prioritize creating a thorough menu guide, and then prioritize keeping it up to date and communicating those updates. 

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Use the tools that are out there to streamline your menu training process, including testing. There’s no reason you should be spending your time fighting with an excel document trying to print a menu test!

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At Yelli, we believe in simple and effective training solutions for modern restaurant teams. If you liked this blog make sure to subscribe to our newsletter, or reach out to us and connect!

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