Reason #1: Offering the desired value
A typical guest for us is someone who has a fast lifestyle and expects the food to be fast while still being healthy. The reality is that speed is difficult to maintain if you as the guest have to scan a massive menu and the staff has to shuffle between making 27 different meals at a time.
Guests care about the overall value: a mix of freshness + speed.
Here on Dunlawton Avenue in Port Orange, FL it gets hectic during the busy hours and busy professionals do not want to hang around any longer than they absolutely have to.
Smaller menu allows us to become better in our specialization making the food fresher.
Reason #2: Need for consistency and service times
By focusing on the core offering of building meals out of bowls or pita bread, we both manage and exceed our guests' expectations by ensuring consistency in our food. And this consistency will be important as we add Filo #2, #3 etc...
Restaurants like ours with a specialty cuisine and a "limited-menu have a streamlined operation which gives guests the benefit as wait times are shortened through faster decision-making and the staff has a thorough knowledge of the menu items," writes Chris Wyland for FastCasual.com
Additional benefit for the guest is the visibly polished service time with guests. After all, since our goal is to feed our communities and to sustainably grow profits so that we can re-invest in the crew, additional locations and affect Filo stakeholders , operating a specialized-menu model like ours might just achieve that desire.