What a special is for
A special earns its place when it does a job the regular menu cannot. It uses a product that has to move today, like the fish that came in heavy or the last case of peaches. It tests a dish the chef wants on the next menu without reprinting anything. It gives the regulars who eat with you twice a week something new to order.
What a special should not be is a place to hide leftovers or a second menu the kitchen was never staffed for. If the specials need a third cook on the line, they are not specials anymore.
How many specials, and which kinds
Most rooms do best with two or three. These are the common kinds and how each one behaves over a night:
| Kind | What it looks like | When it comes off |
|---|---|---|
| Catch or cut of the day | One fish or one steak, priced by the day | When the portions run out, often by eight |
| Chef’s test dish | A dish trying out for the next menu | End of the night, or when the prep is gone |
| Soup of the day | Changes daily, one price all year | When the pot is empty |
| Weekday feature | Taco Tuesday, Friday fish fry | The same day next week, back on |
| Drink special | A cocktail built on a bottle to move | When the bottle is gone |
Where specials live
Specials usually live in three or four places at once: a board by the door, a printed insert or clip-on, the server’s recital, and the menu behind the QR code. The trouble starts when those disagree. The board says halibut, the server says it is gone, the insert still lists yesterday’s soup.
- The board sells to people walking in. Write the price on it.
- The insert is paper you reprint daily. Worth it for a prix fixe night, often skipped on a weeknight.
- The server’s recital is the warmest, and the easiest to forget by the time the table decides.
- The QR menu is the one copy you can change mid-service from your phone, so it can be the source the others follow.
If your specials rotate every day, a printed layout helps: the specials board template is a real Gaslamp design set up for exactly this.
Pricing a special
Price a special from what the plate costs to make, the same as the rest of the menu. The menu item price calculator takes a plate cost and your food cost target and gives you a starting number. A special is not a discount by default. When the product is better or harder to get, it can sit above the regular menu.
What guests do watch is a price they were never told. Put the price on the board and in the menu, and have servers say it. For a fish that moves every day, set tonight’s number when the delivery lands, rather than writing “market price” and leaving the table to ask.
A specials day, from prep to close
- Morning: the chef decides the specials from what came in and counts the portions.
- Before lineup: specials go on the board and the QR menu, with prices.
- Lineup: the cook describes each dish, the servers taste it, the allergens are named out loud.
- Service: the count is tracked on the pass; each special comes off the menu the minute it is out.
- Close: note what sold and what did not. A special that sells out three nights running is a menu item.
Running out is the moment everyone hates, and it has its own word: see what 86 means. How much a special should drive the next menu is covered in how often to change your menu, and the lineup habits carry over from training staff on a new menu.
Running specials in Gaslamp, and what it does not do
Keep a Specials section at the top of your menu. Rewrite the lines each afternoon from your phone (a cup and a bowl can share a line as two labeled prices), and use the note under the section heading (up to 120 characters) for “Tonight only” or “Until they run out.” When a special is gone, mark it sold out; about thirty seconds after you save, the menu behind the QR code shows it struck through with a “Sold out” label, so guests know it ran rather than wondering where it went. Switch it off entirely when tomorrow’s specials go in. If you need a printed insert, a paid plan downloads the menu as a print-ready PDF.
Gaslamp does not schedule specials to appear on a given day or hour, so Taco Tuesday is a section you show on Tuesday morning and hide at close. It does not ring specials into your POS or count portions. Diners, which live on specials, are a good model: menus for diners.