Menu Engineer Gregg Rapp Hosts Menu Boot Camp
 
Called “the menu magician”by Time Magazine, Rapp shows food and beverage professionals how to increase profitability during his interactive seminars Sept. 18 and Oct. 30 in Palm Springs, California.
 
PALM SPRINGS, CALIF., August 24, 2007 – One of the biggesst mistakes restaurateurs make with their menus is that they treat them like a price list, rather than a power tool for sales, says Gregg Rapp, a 25-year industry veteran who specializes in refreshing tired menus. But by spending one day at Rapp’s exclusive Menu Boot Camp in Palm Springs, California, food and beverage professionals will change their thinking after walking away with a new menu that’s engineered for profitability.

The key to Menu Boot Camp, offered on Sept. 18 and Oct. 30, 2007, is the new menu. “Participants will bring their menus to the seminar and leave with fully engineered menus based on what they’ve learned that day,”? Rapp says. “That’s where it differs from most restaurant industry seminars.”?

Menu Boot Camp isn’t a place where attendees simply sit and take notes. Rather, they’re actively involved in the transformation of their menus. The overarching theme of the day is menu education, in which Rapp reveals the tools that participants need to reinvigorate their menus, including menu engineering, menu design, menu trends, tools for profitability, menu promotions, customer profiling and menu allowance programs.

After learning the secrets of menu engineering from Rapp in the first half of the day, participants lay out their new menus based on the techniques they have learned from Rapp to re-create their menus for maximum profitability. The day concludes with more interactive exercises and discussion groups.

In addition to their re-engineered menus that are ready for service, participants will leave the seminar with a menu analysis from Rapp, a beta copy of Rapp’s proprietary software so restaurateurs can run their own numbers down the road and a full year of menu consulting with Rapp. Plus, Rapp will analyze participants’ re-engineered menus 30 days after Menu Boot Camp to see how they perform. Food and beverage professionals who have attended past boot camps report increased profits by an average of $2,500 the first month.

In the past, Rapp has taken his Menu Boot Camp on the road. This time around, however, he is hosting the seminar in the historic William Holden House in Palm Springs, California, which the iconic actor built in 1977. The William Holden House has a 2,000 square foot Gallery Meeting Room for the seminars. The house holds an extensive library of cookbooks from around the world and a full test kitchen and test bar, as well as Rapp’s private menu collection, which numbers in the thousands.

“What I have found from past Menu Boot Camps is that when I would teach in Miami, participants would fly from Chicago, and vice versa,” says Rapp, who has conducted boot camps all over the world, from Hong Kong to Guatemala. “So I figured, why not come to Palm Springs? With airfares so low, you might as well come to this great destination, stay an extra day or two and have some fun—and it could all be tax-deductible.”

Because Rapp wants to give participants and their menus full attention, Menu Boot Camps are limited to 10 restaurants. He recommends that restaurants bring their entire team to ensure that everyone is on the same playing field when making future menu decisions.

The cost of Menu Boot Camp is $1,295 per restaurant for the first participant, and $995 for each additional participant from the restaurant. Rapp also stands by his work with a Money Back Guarantee: If your profits don’t increase by at least $1,000 in the first 30 days following Menu Boot Camp, Rapp will refund the tuition.

For more information on Menu Boot Camp and to register, log on to www.menutechnologies.net.