Cross-selling is the sales technique of offering products that complement the main order: starters, drinks, extra sides, desserts and coffees. It raises the average spend by adding more items.
Cross-selling is a sales technique that consists of offering the guest products or services that complement what they have already decided to buy, increasing the number of items on the order and, as a result, the total bill. In restaurants, cross-selling is everywhere: suggesting a starter while guests decide on their main, offering drinks ("what can I get you to drink?"), proposing extra sides ("shall we add some patatas bravas or padrón peppers with the meat?"), and asking about dessert and coffee once the main course is finished. Unlike upselling, which replaces a product with a superior version, cross-selling adds new products to the order. Effective cross-selling is based on suggesting products that genuinely complement and improve the guest's experience: a wine that pairs with the chosen dish, a sharing starter that fills the wait, a light dessert after a hearty main.
The menu itself can be designed to make cross-selling easier: prominent sections of sharing starters, pairing suggestions printed next to dishes, set menus that include starter, main, dessert and a drink at an attractive price. Restaurants that cross-sell systematically can increase their average spend by 15% to 35%, depending on the type of venue and how well the team is trained. The key moment for cross-selling is order-taking: a well-trained server can generate €5–10 extra per table with three natural questions in 30 seconds.
Cross-selling uplift = (Additional items × Average item price) / Number of orders
To measure how well cross-selling is working, calculate the average number of additional items sold per order beyond the mains. If before cross-selling training your average order had 2.1 items (main + drink) and afterwards it rises to 2.8 items (main + drink + starter or dessert), you have added 0.7 items per order. If the average price of those additional items is €6, each order generates €4.20 more. With 50 orders a day, that is €210 of additional revenue per day, or €6,300 a month.
Another indicator is the cross-selling conversion rate: out of every 100 times the server offers dessert, how many guests accept? A conversion rate of 30–40% on desserts is considered good; above 50% is excellent and reflects a well-trained team and appealing desserts.
Your restaurant has an average spend of €24. You analyse your orders and find that only 25% of guests order a starter, 40% order dessert and 10% order coffee. You introduce a cross-selling programme with three actions: 1) A welcome script: "While you look at the menu, can I bring you something to nibble on? Our homemade croquetas are amazing." 2) A "starters to share" section highlighted on the menu with mouth-watering photos.
3) A dessert script: after clearing plates, the server presents the dessert menu open and says "I'll leave you the dessert menu — the cheesecake has just come out of the oven." Two months later: starters rise to 45% of orders (+20 points), desserts to 55% (+15 points), coffee to 25% (+15 points). The average spend goes from €24 to €29.50, an increase of 23%. With 80 covers a day, that is €440 more per day, €11,000 more per month. Training the team cost €200 for one session; the ROI is enormous.
Cross-selling is the most natural and least intrusive way to increase revenue in a restaurant, because it meets the guest's expectations: when you go out to eat, you expect to be offered a drink, asked about starters and tempted with dessert. Not doing it is quite literally leaving money on the table. On top of that, well-executed cross-selling improves the guest experience: a sharing starter fills the wait for the mains, a wine pairing lifts the enjoyment of the dish, a dessert rounds off the meal. That is why, unlike other sales techniques that can feel like pressure, good cross-selling is perceived as attentive service.
The keys are menu design (making starters, sides and desserts visible), team training (natural scripts, product knowledge, reading the guest) and incentives (some restaurants reward the servers who cross-sell the most). Restaurants that do not cross-sell systematically tend to have average spends 20–30% below their potential.
Zindra suggests cross-selling combinations based on an analysis of which products are usually ordered together. The POS can show servers automatic recommendations for pairings, starters or desserts based on the mains chosen.
Tools and content to go deeper into this concept.
Average spend (the average ticket) is the average amount each customer (or table) spends in your restaurant. It is a key indicator of commercial performance and of how well your menu works.
Upselling is the sales technique of offering the guest a superior or upgraded version of the item they have chosen, increasing the value of the order and the average spend per guest.
Menu engineering is a menu analysis and design technique that classifies each dish by popularity and profitability in order to optimise the sales mix and maximise overall profit.
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