You can’t have your full menu available for digital ordering. So what food, beer, wine, cocktails do you offer? One approach would be to try some items out—whatever you think might work well—and then track the results and tweak the menu according to what is going well and what is not.

That would be a good approach, and you could do more. What would that initial menu look like?

You likely have some good intuition based on your experience. What if you could validate that intuition before releasing? Software companies often use data analysis to figure out what product users would most likely purchase. In many consumer industries, testing is used to identify product configurations that are more likely to succeed than others.

A menu is essentially a product line. Each food and drink item on the menu have different attributes like a product.

One approach, conjoint analysis, can help identify what users may prefer as a group. Not just do I prefer mayo over mustard. But given several options, one group of your customers would rather have a hamburger with mayo and a side of fries over a hamburger with aioli and a side of tater tots. Another group prefers an impossible burger with pickles and a side of sweet potato fries over a bean burger with pickles and a side of tater tots, etc.

What combination of items do large numbers of your customers prefer?

You can find a good starting point through surveys and online focus groups.