★ EST 2011 · 9 Locations
Tap Room · Menu Engineering Case Study

How Tap Room flexed their mussels across 9 locations

Tap Room re-engineered their menu to put mussels back at the center of the brand. The numbers below compare the 90 days before vs. the 90 days after the April 1, 2024 relaunch — appetizer-section mussel sales only.

90-Day Before & After · April 1, 2024 Relaunch
The impact at a glance

Mussel Orders — Before & After

Appetizer-section mussel orders, 90 days pre-launch vs. 90 days post-launch.

Orders before
726
90 days pre-launch
Orders after
1,978
90 days post-launch
Order growth
+172.5%
vs. prior 90 days
vs. last year
+31.0%
same 90 days in 2023
Flavor breakdown

Every Core Flavor Grew

Order counts for the three mussel flavors carried before and after the relaunch.

White Wine & Garlic Mussels
Before 407
After 1,261
+209.8% orders
Marinara Mussels
Before 91
After 235
+158.2% orders
Buffalo & Bleu Cheese Mussels
Before 228
After 321
+40.8% orders
The redesign also opened the door to seasonal flavors. Three new limited-time mussels launched alongside the new menu — Salsa Verde (102 orders), Elote (52), and Drunken German (7) — adding 161 orders that didn't exist before the relaunch.
The menu mix tells the story

Mussel P-Mix Inverted the Month the Menu Dropped

Mussels as a share of the appetizer section — 2024 vs. 2023. Through Q1, 2024 was trailing the year before. The relaunch flipped it, and it climbed every month after.

2024 (post-relaunch)
2023 (prior year)
7.5% 5.0% 2.5% 0%
Jan
Feb
Mar
Menu Relaunch
Apr
May
Jun

Appetizer-section mussel sales only; excludes Mussel Monday and Happy Hour mussels. Reported as menu mix (P-Mix) and order volume rather than gross dollars, since menu prices were raised at relaunch and dollar comparisons are affected by pricing and seasonality. New menu rolled out April 1, 2024.

What the redesign delivered

Results Across the Board

A consistent, system-wide lift — driven by menu design, not discounting.

01
Mussel orders up 172.5% 726 → 1,978 orders in the 90 days after the relaunch vs. the 90 days before.
02
Every core flavor climbed White Wine +209.8%, Marinara +158.2%, Buffalo +40.8% — no single outlier carrying the result.
03
P-Mix inverted at launch After trailing 2023 all through Q1, mussels' share of the appetizer section rose every month post-launch — 6.83% in June vs. 4.35% a year earlier.
04
Beat last year by 31% Orders topped the same April–June window in 2023 by 31%, even after several mussel options were pulled from the regular menu.
+172.5% Mussel orders · first 90 days

By rebuilding the menu around placement, visual hierarchy, and storytelling, Tap Room made mussels a signature dish again — and the numbers followed across all 9 locations.