Every autumn the same thing happens. The squash gets cheap, somebody in the kitchen has an idea, and then the menu does not change until March because changing it means reprinting it.

Why the season is on your side

Produce at its peak costs less and tastes better at the same time, which almost nothing else in this business does. A dish built on what is cheap this month has a better margin and a better plate than the same dish built in February out of something flown in.

It also gives a regular a reason to come back in six weeks. A menu that never moves is a menu somebody has already read.

Change a corner, not the book

You do not need a new menu four times a year. Keep the dishes people come for, and let a handful of lines move with what is good.

• Two or three specials that turn over every few weeks.
• One drink that belongs to the season and disappears with it.
• A side or a garnish that follows what is cheap.
• The dessert, which is the easiest thing on any menu to change.

Say when it is leaving

A dish that is here until the end of the month sells harder than a dish that is just here. It is the same food and the same price, and the sentence does the work.

The print run is the real obstacle

This is where seasonal menus die. A new print run costs money and a week, so a good idea in October waits for the next batch, and the next batch waits for enough ideas to pile up. Nobody decides not to be seasonal. The printer decides it for them.

When the menu lives on a screen, the whole calculation goes. The special goes on in the morning and is live before the first table scans. If it does not sell, it comes off on Thursday and costs you nothing but the prep.

Keep last year’s list

The most useful thing you can do this autumn takes ten minutes: write down what sold, what did not, and what you paid. Next September you will be reading your own notes instead of guessing again.

The kitchen has always known what is good this week. The only question is how long it takes the menu to say so.