Condiments

Condiments are a type of menu item that describes the preparation of another menu item. Condiment menu items can include traditional condiments placed on food such as ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise. They may also include ingredients found in a menu item which a guest may add or exclude from their order, such as onions or tomatoes. Condiments can also represent preparation instructions about how an item is prepared such as meat temperature for a steak (rare, medium, or well), egg preparation (scrambled, sunny side up, or over easy), and special requests like sauce on the side. In table service environments, condiments are used to specify guest choices for side items that come with an entrée, such as a baked potato, fries, or rice.

Condiments are added to other menu items; they cannot be added on their own. The item a condiment is added to is the parent item, while the condiment is a child item.

Condiments are organized into condiment groups, which describe a collection of condiments. An example of a condiment group is salad dressing. An example of members of the salad dressing condiment group are blue cheese, ranch, and Italian. The condiment group name is used in the POS client and in Transaction Services to guide operators and guests through the ordering process.

Menu item configuration determines which condiment groups can be used with which menu items. A condiment may belong to more than one condiment group. For example, cheddar cheese may be part of the cheese condiment group and it may also be part of the omelet filling condiment group.

Simphony supports various types of condiments.

Priced Condiments

Priced condiments are condiments with prices associated with them, and add to the transaction total. For example, adding avocado or bacon to a sandwich might increase the amount due of the order.

Non-Priced Condiments

Non-priced condiments have no prices or a zero price associated with them. There is no charge when these condiments are added to an order. An example of non-priced condiments is the meat temperature instructions rare, medium or well. Condiments such as ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise are other examples of typical non-priced condiments.

Required Condiments

A selection of a required condiment is mandatory before the menu item is considered complete. Meat temperature in a steak restaurant is often a required condiment because the kitchen must know how the guest wants their steak prepared.

Allowed Condiments

Allowed condiments may be ordered with a menu item, but are not required. Allowed condiments are requests from the guest for a special preparation, addition or removal of an ingredient. A guest may want the sauce for their entrée on the side, may request no tomatoes, or their curry to be mild.

Forced Condiments

Forced condiments are required condiments to which a minimum and maximum number of condiments from the group must be chosen. For example, a banana split requires at least one ice cream flavor, but not more than three.

Default Condiments

Default condiments are condiments which come with a menu item by default. For example, a hamburger might come with lettuce, tomato, and onion. Because the restaurant staff knows what the hamburger comes with, default condiments are usually set to remain hidden when in their default state. Default condiments cannot be voided. Instead, operators interact with default condiments using condiment prefixes such as Add, No, Extra, or Sub (substitute) to indicate the guest’s request (for example, No Onion). Default condiments are typically used in quick service restaurants.

Prefix Condiments

Prefixes change the state of a condiment. Prefix condiments allow operators to interact with both default and non-default condiments. There are seven condiment prefix types:

  1. Description: Used to create your own prefixes that describe other condiments. For example, Lite or Extra can be used to describe the amount of sauce or dressing on a menu item.

  2. No: Modifies default condiments, overriding a hidden attribute if it exists. For example, all hamburgers come with onions as onions are a default condiment for hamburgers. When the condiment prefix type No is selected followed by onions, onions are no longer hidden and appear as “No onions” on the order.

  3. Add: Adds a non-default condiment to the menu item. For example, hamburgers may have default condiments of lettuce, tomato, and onion. Selecting pickles appears as “add pickles” to call attention that it is not normally part of a hamburgers. Using add with a default condiment also increases the quantity of the item. For example, using add with a default condiment of tomato changes the condiment to “2 tomato”.

  4. Sub: Substitutes and shows a non-default condiment to indicate it’s replacing a default condiment.

  5. Plain: Removes all condiments except default condiments set to persist on plain. For example, applying Plain to a hamburgers removes the lettuce, tomato, and onion, but the hamburgers patty remains if it was set to persist.

  6. Reset: Resets a menu item with condiments to its default state with no modifications other than the default condiments.

  7. Clear: Removes all quantities of a chosen condiment, and then switches the default condiment to No <condiment>.

Related Topics

Parent topic: Menu Items