⇧ This is a current dinner menu the business is using. I made the full arrangement of the text, color, background, and more. The photo on the left is taken by me, while two of the photos on the right are given by the owner.
One of the difficulties I encountered was arranging the whole content into a A3 size paper. As you noticed, there are a lot of items. To design a menu, I can't make the text too small, or else it would be too hard to read for the customers. At the same time, I can't make the text too big to the edge of the canvas, or else some of the content might be cut off during the printing process. (I learned this when I was making the menu for the restaurant Bag O Crab, where I put the content too tight to the edges and the printing company complained about it. Please refer to menu design page in "Bag O Crab" design.) Therefore, I had to be very careful on those limitations. This is a second version of menu design before opening, and I have edited more than 10 times already for this version. After discussing back and forth with the owner, we came out with this in the end. This is now using in the storefront as a backup solution when the iPad is down.
Another interesting thing I found during designing was the printing process. Sometimes printing itself can be a big expense. We normally work with a local printing company with all the copy and printing supplies. It costs us $7.5 each piece for printing this menu with lamination. The owner thinks it is too expensive, so asks me to figure a way to lower the cost. I do the research online and make couple phone calls. Finally, I find it interestingly that the cheapest way to print is through Office Depot. With the regular coupon they have, each of the menu prints cost down to $3.9, which is acceptable for the business. From this, I learn a lot on making decisions on expenses of a business.