I’d recently been led to think about menu pricing when a picture was posted on Twitter. It reminded me of a study that I had read a couple of years ago on the effect of price formatting on the sales in a restaurant. This study “Effects of Menu-price Formats on Restaurant Checks” by Yang, S, Kimes, S and Sessarego was published in the Cornell Hospitality Report in 2009. In this study diners were given menus with three different price formats and the effect of these formats on the total bills paid. As you would expect the party size had the most impact, dining duration and guests willingness to pay also had a large effect (the p value was less than 0.0001 for these three variables). The overall regression analysis combined the three different price formats into one variable, which didn’t seem to affect the total price paid significantly. However, the authors then performed a more detailed analysis of the three different price formats using a linear contrast analysis and they found that parties with a numeral only format (i.e. no $sign) spent$3.70 more than the average party and those who had been given the menus with the prices written in text spent \$1.85 less. This increase translated to a 8.15 percent increase in spend per person.  Perhaps this explains why more menus such as the Carluccio’s one above don’t include a £ sign when they list prices.