Average order value moves through three stages, and most UK restaurants only work the first. Discover: what the guest sees, in what order, in what language. Convert: whether anything actively recommends a second course, a pairing, a side. Retain: whether that guest comes back at all, because a returning guest spends more with no acquisition cost attached.
Working one without the others caps the result. A menu that recommends brilliantly but never brings anyone back is still starting from zero every service.
Price rises are visible, they are the first thing guests compare, and in the current UK market they are the fastest route to a complaint. Raising what a guest orders is invisible by comparison — a recommended side, a paired drink, a dessert that appeared at the right moment.
Most operators know their busiest night and their best-selling dish, but not their most profitable dish or their real average spend per head by service. Menu engineering — classifying dishes by popularity against margin — turns that into a decision rather than a guess.
Move the sliders to your own numbers. The point is not our figures — it is how little the uplift has to be before the subscription pays for itself.
5% is the conservative default. WowMenu pilot restaurants have reported considerably more, but your own number is the one that matters.
An estimate based on the figures you entered, not a forecast or a guarantee. Actual results depend on your menu, your guests and how the platform is set up.
It varies far too much by format and location to have a single benchmark — a city-centre casual dining room and a suburban gastropub are not comparable. The useful number is your own, trending, by service.
Poorly targeted upselling does. A recommendation that fits what the guest is already ordering reads as good service, which is why context matters more than volume.
Menu and recommendation changes affect the next service. Retention effects take longer, because they depend on guests coming back.