Spice Things Up This Fall: How to Craft an Autumn Café Menu That Stands Out

BY EMILY JOY MENESES
ONLINE EDITOR

Featured photo by Annie Spratt

What to know:

• Making a seasonal menu that’s exciting for customers doesn’t need to be complicated or cost a fortune; it just takes a little extra thought and creativity
• When making recipes for autumn café drinks, hone in on 1-3 ingredients that speak to you instead of overloading your menu with options
• For those living in warmer climates, fall fruits can help drinks feel attuned to the season, yet still refreshing
• When in doubt, look to the culinary world for inspiration; Take Care Coffee in St. Paul, for example, uses sous vide cooking techniques for their “slow brew” seasonal coffee menu

I get it. You’re tired. That’s why we work in coffee, right?

When you’re a café owner navigating unpredictable shifts in weather, constantly fluctuating ingredient prices, and a line of demanding customers, it’s easy to throw in the towel when it comes to seasonal recipe-making and lean on “Old Faithful”-type drinks (cough, pumpkin spice). But where’s the fun in that?

Making a fall menu that stands out and excites customers doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive; more than anything, it simply requires looking at the tools in front of you from a different perspective.

Today, we’ll share easy ways to craft an impactful menu this autumn.

Pick a star ingredient + run with it

When creating a seasonal menu, it’s tempting to overload customers with dozens of options, but research shows that, when it comes to food and beverage choices, most customers actually prefer having fewer to choose from.

“A menu with too many options can create decision fatigue,” explains Vigor Branding, an advertising, marketing, and brand strategy agency that specializes in the restaurant, hospitality, beverage, and craft food industries. “Behavioral psychology shows that when people are presented with excessive choices, they often struggle to decide. In restaurant (or café) menu design, this phenomenon is known as ‘menu overload.’”

Instead of packing your menu with every fall-themed ingredient you can think of, think of 1-3 that you resonate with. Whether the flavor that speaks to you is persimmon, maple, turmeric, or brown sugar, hone in on what inspires you and start building your drinks from there. As a result, you’ll naturally end up with a more cohesive menu—and customers will feel the difference.

Tell a story through a beverage

Thinking of a fall recipe that’s unique to you can be as simple as conjuring up your own memories of the season. When you hear the word “autumn,” what automatically comes to mind? Is it trick-or-treating with your grandparents, telling stories by a campfire, or watching the leaves fall on your way to school?

Imagine how you can conjure these memories—tell these stories—through flavor. Lattes topped with candy corn, cappuccinos infused with torched marshmallow syrup, or whipped cream infused with crushed nuts to emulate the “crunch” of autumn leaves… the possibilities are endless. Consider your menu to be a blank page, and your recipes are your story.

If you live in a warm climate, don’t let the weather limit you

When it’s 90 degrees outside (as it is here in L.A.), it can be difficult to get into the fall spirit—and the last thing customers will want to do is down a hot, decadent coffee drink laden with sugar and cream.

But higher temperatures don’t have to signal the demise of fall-inspired beverages; there are so many ways to capture the energy of autumn while still keeping drinks refreshing. For example, infusing drinks with seasonal fruits, like persimmon, apple, pear, or cranberry, can evoke fall feelings without making drinks feel too weighed down.

And don’t underestimate the power of cold coffee; in fact, recent data shows that, regardless of external temperatures, customers are wanting iced coffee more than ever before. If you’re working with a warmer climate, rest assured that fall flavors can taste just as great in an iced drink. However, keep in mind that cold drinks tend to mask flavors more than hot drinks, so you’ll want to adjust your recipes accordingly.

Look to the culinary world for inspiration

When in doubt, a tried-and-true technique for getting drink recipe inspiration is looking to the culinary world. Whether it’s a favorite dessert or cooking method, there’s something so luxurious about bringing the same attention you would to a culinary dish, to a café beverage.

Take Care Coffee of St. Paul, Minnesota, shares how culinary techniques inspired their fall menu this year. “We designed our specialty menu around slow brew: a method of brewing and flavoring coffee using sous vide cooking techniques,” the café wrote to Barista Magazine.

Lee Carter, owner of Take Care, first learned about sous vide coffee techniques—a method of making cold brew-style coffee concentrate with a sous vide precision cooker or immersion circulator—when visiting a friend from Discourse Coffee in Milwaukee and Chicago. From there, Lee began exploring the vast potential of sous vide coffee.

Standout offerings on Take Care’s slow brew menu this fall include a “Spiced Apple Slow Brew,” which is made by steeping diced Granny Smith apples and spices in coffee, then finished with caramel. 

Forget the trends & do what works for you

Ultimately, creating a fall menu that works for your shop means tuning into your personal taste and that of your customers—don’t just hop on trends if they’re not true to you and your shop’s ethos. But, if pumpkin spice really speaks to you, hey, more power to you.

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