The whole industry is cutting menus. The biggest chains are pulling entire sections off the board to win back speed, consistency and, above all, margin.
In many systems, a product comes in through marketing and goes out through purchasing. Operations, the people who pay the cost, find out after the fact. Every launch arrives with a sales forecast. None arrives with its execution cost.
One more item means one more ingredient to order, store and waste, one more step on the line, at the register and at the drive-thru, one more module in training for crews already stretched thin.
And when it's time to cut, everyone has a reason not to. Marketing protects its campaign calendar. Purchasing protects its supplier volumes. Nobody defends speed of service. That cost doesn't show up in the launch-month P&L. It shows up six months later, in speed of service, waste and turnover.
The most closely watched turnaround in the industry started from that exact diagnosis: roughly 30% of menu items cut, a target of under 4 minutes per order, and at least $500 million reinvested in labor. Traffic came back.
Operating margin didn't: in North America, it fell from 21% to 13.6% over two years, according to Reuters. The labor investment was a direct contributor. A shorter menu reduces waste and inventory. The time it freed up went back to the guest. That's a deliberate P&L trade-off, not an accident.
Three levers that apply to any multi-unit system:
Menu complexity isn't a menu problem. It's a governance problem. In your system, does operations have a seat at the table when a product gets cut, or does it find out at the same time as the restaurants?