There's something you might notice when you go out to eat, depending on the restaurant. The entrees and drinks can vary a lot, but then the dessert menu drops and you're almost always left staring at the same options: cheesecake,

maybe a chocolate lava cake, and some type of fruit pie. Probably sorbet or ice cream. Desserts in a lot of restaurants are kind of boring. There's a reason why, but it doesn't have to be this way.

Menu curation can make or break a restaurant because, frankly, it's really hard to make money in this business. Restaurant profit margins are not particularly high. It's interesting because so many people want to go into the restaurant business because they think it's

glamorous or whatever. It's definitely less than 10%. Kathryn Gordon teaches restaurant and culinary management at the Institute of Culinary Education in New York. The revenue comes from food and beverage sales, and then there's the cost of goods

to support those sales—things like ingredients and staff salaries, rent, electricity, and more. What's left is a low number. And then, of course, it has to be taxed. The menu is really one chance to maximize profits,

but it's a delicate balance. Charge too much, and people won't buy it. Charge too little, and you'll miss out. When priced right, the entrees will bring in the most profit. And it's not really a secret that drinks are relatively cheap

to make and it's easy to upcharge. Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. And people will often pay that multiple times throughout a meal. But outside of drinks and entrees, it's not so easy to make money. Look at appetizers, for example, with an average profit

margin all the way down at 22%. Luckily, if you're savvy, there are ways to work appetizers into a menu and recoup those costs. So what people try to do is what we call cross-utilization of product. For example, you can buy a whole chicken cheaper

than pieces of chicken, and then you might be able to use the chicken bones after it's broken down for your base, for your stock. And then that stock can become a sauce, or it can become a soup, and you can sell that,

and then you can sell, like, your chicken breast, like on a salad or something, you know, at lunch. And then you can have the chicken thighs in a dish at dinner time. And then you might even have, like, little scrap pieces.

And I don't know, you're selling chicken tacos at the bar or something like that, you know. So it's like full utilization. So when done properly, the menu fits together like a neat little puzzle. But desserts are sometimes hard to fit in.

Making them is one thing, but making them well requires an entirely different skill set from the rest of the kitchen. Plus, you want that amazing 'wow' kind of thing at your restaurant. You have to dedicate space, and not every place has it because of the rent for the square footage.

It's just astronomical these days, and people just can't afford more little physical locations. There are also ingredients to consider: cream cheese, chocolate, nuts, and things like that. You may not be using them in other parts of your menu. Desserts are one of the most expensive things

to make in terms of ingredients. Ingredient costs in the world change, and consumers see inflation as well. It's more than the egg inflation we've all been frustrated with. In 2018, the cost of vanilla skyrocketed due to a crisis in Madagascar.

It's stabilized, but it's never really returned to where it once was. Bad weather in West Africa, where around 70% of the world's cocoa comes from, has led to dramatic increases as well. When all is said and done, desserts are tied with appetizers

as the lowest average profit margins in restaurants and one of the hardest things to fit into that neat little menu puzzle. So when a restaurant is struggling, in-house pastry chefs are often the first to go, especially because restaurants can offer desserts at a much lower cost by outsourcing them entirely.

Thus the same desserts everywhere you go. But there is something about dessert. These places are often missing the marketability of the experience. Okay, but before we get into that, let's take a minute to talk about our sponsor, Bluehost.

If you need to build a website, Bluehost is trusted by over 5 million WordPress users globally. And now they even have an AI website builder that can design a custom look in seconds. No coding necessary. Simply type in the kind of website you want to build,

And you'll instantly get a bunch of designs to choose from. You'll also get features like marketing and e-commerce tools to help you manage profit margins, which help grow and scale your business. Bluehost has no editorial influence on our work, but their support does make videos like this one possible.

So if you're a content creator, blogger, or entrepreneur, we're just getting started. Check out the link below. Now, from aesthetically pleasing websites back to aesthetically pleasing foods. Recent data suggests there's a shift in how consumers are viewing desserts

when going out to eat. Only 11% of Boomers, on average, ordered dessert, compared to over 30% of Gen Z or Millennial diners at Bad Roman, an Italian restaurant in Manhattan. That number is much higher.

It's close to 40% of our guests ordering desserts. Chef Craig Koketsu and pastry chef Lucy Blanche helped create the restaurant's dessert menu. And part of the reason so many people are ordering from it is because they've tapped

into the importance of marketability. You know, the saying is that people eat with their eyes first, and it's totally true. So you want to capture them first visually. Chef Lucy's viral lemon cheesecake really captured people.

I mean, it's a lemon cheesecake, beautifully molded to be shaped like lemons, served on a lemon plate. It's even fun to eat since you're encouraged to crack the shell before diving in. And of course, it tastes amazing.

It's very important to me that things look wonderful, but more than anything, that they also taste amazing. I remember one of the team members at the table when we brought the dish out saying, "Well, this is a home run."

And he was right. At the end of the day, the only way for a restaurant to really make money is to get people into seats. Viral hits like this can drive customers to a restaurant, and more customers obviously mean more profit as they spend on entrees and drinks.

But to get diners coming back again and again, chefs can't rely on one dish. The entire menu has to work together, and desserts have a unique opportunity. It's the last thing the diner identifies with at the table.

Everything will be memorable, but I feel like the last thing they eat is always what makes the meal. What's going to make your entire dining experience? Dining out has always been about more than just the food.

And so that's how dessert can fit into this menu puzzle: as a final cherry on top of the experience, making you want to come back, send your friends, and spend a little extra at the end.

Why every restaurant has the same desserts

Vox helps you understand our world.

Vox video is Bridgett Henwood, Cath Spangler, Adam Freelander, Joey Sendaydiego, Coleman Lowndes, Christophe Haubursin, Kim Mas, Laura Bult, Ed Vega, Rajaa Elidrissi, and with research support from Melissa Hirsch. 

Become a member today: https://www.vox.com/support-now

Check out our FAQ on permissions and licensing of our videos: https://www.voxmedia.com/pages/licensing

✉️ Write us: voxvideo@vox.com


Why every restaurant has the same desserts

Why every restaurant has the same desserts

Scripts