Which quadrant in menu engineering contains items with high popularity and high contribution margin?

• A. Plowhorses.
• B. Stars.
• C. Puzzles.
• D. Dogs.

Answer: (B)

In menu engineering, items are assessed by two factors: how often they are chosen (popularity) and how much profit they contribute (contribution margin). When both of these are high, the items fall into the stars quadrant. Stars are the menu’s best performers because they attract strong demand and deliver solid profits, so the strategy is to protect and maximize them—keep them consistently high quality, ensure steady supply, price appropriately, and feature them prominently to sustain their appeal.

Other quadrants describe different dynamics: plowhorses are highly popular but low-margin, puzzles are high-margin but low-popularity, and dogs are low on both. Those items require different actions, such as cost or price adjustments for plowhorses, marketing or repositioning for puzzles, and potential removal or reformulation for dogs.