A: Sometimes, an item will have multiple sets of extras. They should always be ordered in this sequence:

A required choice should always come before an optional choice and optional preparations should come before any other options choices.

Required extras are extras that are mandatory to the fulfillment of an item. A good example of this would be a sandwich protein choice, an ice cream flavor choice, or a side choice. You will be able to tell when an extra is required because it will say something along the lines of, "Served with..." or "Choice of....".

Take a look at the menu below:

In this example, you can see that the category description says that all omelettes are served with hash browns or grits and come with a choice of toast or biscuit. This tells us that this is a required extra and it applies to all the items under this category. This is how you would structure the "Southwestern Omelette" item:

The two required "decisions" for this item should be split up by type and titled accordingly. Hash browns and grits are considered a side, while toast and biscuits are bread. Depending on the options listed, you should determine the best title to use for those extras.

If you have multiple required extras, just order them in a way that would make the most sense for a customer.

After required extras, you should list any optional preparation extras. A preparation extra allows you to choose how you want your item prepared. Since every menu is different, this extra will vary among items. Some that you should be familiar with are: Meat Temperature, Egg Preparation, and Spice Level. Aside from these, a few common ones you might find on a menu are listed below.

Even if the preparation extra is optional, its a generally pretty important choice. That's why it should go directly after the other required choices.

Note that this is just optional preparations. If you have a required preparation choice, that may make sense to put first before everything!

Keep in mind that a preparation choice may not necessary say "preparation". You should also read and interpret the extras to understand that perhaps a "Milk Addition" to a coffee is essentially a preparation and so it should be ordered as such.

Following optional preparation extras should be all other optional extras.

Optional extras could include substitution choices or additions. Substitutions are when you have the choice to replace a certain item with something else, sometimes for an additional cost. For example:

As you can see, there is a substitution option for the grits and hash browns. You can replace those with either seasonal fruit or city grits for an additional $3.50.

Add-ons are optional extras that supplement an item. These are usually available for an added cost and there is no limit to how many extras can be added to a menu. Look at the example below.

For this particular example, avocado would be considered a topping so it is listed as a "Topping Addition" and the min/max is 0-1 because it is optional. If there were more options offered for this item, you will have to adjust the max to the number of available extras.

These types of extras are optional and therefore least important to the customer's process of ordering a dish. They should always be ordered last in a way that makes most sense to the customer.