Always review the client’s style guide first before proceeding with transcription of potentially restricted items.

A menu source will sometimes list multiple related selections together without a clear subchoice grouping, such as types of soft drinks or types of bread. We must identify whether or not there is an overarching item that the selections would modify, in order to determine whether the selections should be separated into individual items, or as extras on a single item.

In this example, while the menu selections fall under a Drinks Section, they do not have a primary overarching item to modify, such as “Soft Drinks”. As a result, these selections should be transcribed each as their own individual item.

In another example of this, the selections "Smoked Bacon, Breakfast Sausage Links or Grilled Ham" should be broken into three separate items.

There is no overarching modifier and therefore these are not a modification in flavor, preparation, or ingredient/protein. There is no statement in the menu that these are a sub-choice of a larger item. These are individual side orders that you can add to your meal.

In this next example, we see that the menu source provides additional context in the form of “choice of toast:...”. This is an indication that each relevant type of toast is a modifier to a single item - toast. Therefore, we would transcribe only the item ‘Toast’ with its types, or subchocies, as extras.

In the case of nested modifiers, when there are multiple layers of choices, you may have to transcribe an item’s different price variances each into their own item in order to fully capture the range of possible selections. Learn more about transcribing nested modifiers here. As a reminder, be sure to always check the client’s style guide for more prioritized instruction.

Please feel free to raise examples that you feel do not fit either of these types, we'd love to learn and grow with you!