New Menu Dilemma

What do you do when a new menu is well overdue, and the business is going through a transition period with many areas being affected, yet all with uncertain outcomes. My dilemma is this. I require a new menu, not just because I want to create some new dishes but also for the enthusiasm and motivation for my fellow workers.

The customers also deserve to have some change as well, but saying that, there are some items that I would be shot for if they were to disappear from the menu. Headlines in the paper would read 'Suicide chef removes Bugs from menu'. We have about six dishes that are long standing, and they do sell very well, it would be easy to remove them if they were slow movers.

The menu is definitely one of the largest on offer in this area, saying that, the one presently running is a bit of a mess, small and average to our the standards that we have set.
With the addition of a couple more 'qualified' chefs we should be able to really push the limits again. Throw into the mix that this is the busiest time of year with lots of weddings to cater for every weekend.

I want to coincided the menu with the refurbish of the dinning room, and probably the opening 7 days, currently we trade only five. Again that will become a nightmare. This will affect the menu drastically, staff rostas will become a challenge. In my many years in the industry I can say that the best atmosphere and stable establishments are closed for at least one day, better two.

I do understand that the loss of trade is sometimes hard to take but the quality of staff and the rest of an establishment is also very important. For some places it is easy to close due to public demand for example a restaurant in the business district doesn't need to open on Sunday.
We however are loosing lots of trade to other establishments on the two days we have had to close due to the lack of staff and staying ability.

So I will be very relieved to get this period behind us and continue on with what we do best and that's cook.