ESSAY
Why do American restaurant menus often have no photos—and why do they feel less appetizing at first glance? Drawing on a firsthand experience at Denny’s in California in the 1990s, this article explores how menu design shapes appetite, decision-making, and the dining experience itself. From brain psychology to cultural differences, discover why “text-only menus” can change the way food tastes before it even arrives.
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American Menus Didn’t Look Appetizing to Me
In the 1990s, I walked into a Denny’s in California for the first time. It was a typical family restaurant—casual, easy to enter, the kind of place where you expect to open the menu and see a lineup of dishes just like in Japan—or so I thought. But the moment I opened the menu, I felt a quiet sense of confusion. There wasn’t a single photo. What filled the pages instead were dense blocks of dish names and descriptions: omelets, pancakes, bacon, grits… I could read the words. I could roughly understand them. And yet, I couldn’t decide. It didn’t look appetizing. Not because the food seemed bad, but because I couldn’t picture the finished dish in my mind. The familiar act of “choosing by looking at photos,” something I had always relied on in Japan, simply didn’t work here. And in that moment, I realized it clearly: American menus don’t look appetizing.
Appetite Is Triggered by What We See
Later, I came to understand that this discomfort wasn’t about the food at all. It was about how the brain works. In Japanese restaurants, photos come first. The moment you see them, your brain reacts before you even start thinking. Color, gloss, grill marks, volume—visual information is processed instantly, emotions are triggered, and the feeling of “that looks delicious” emerges almost automatically.
Photo → Vision → Emotion → Appetite → Decision
This process is fast, nearly unconscious—desire appears before thought.
But the menu at that Denny’s worked differently. First, I read the English. Then I translated it into Japanese. Then I tried to understand it. Only after that could I attempt to imagine the dish.
Text → Language → Understanding → Imagination → Judgment
This process is slow. And when unfamiliar words or unknown dishes are mixed in, it quickly becomes overwhelming. As a result, the switch that triggers appetite never quite turns on. In other words, it wasn’t that the menu didn’t look appetizing—it was that my brain hadn’t entered “eating mode” yet.
Why It Felt Unfriendly
At the time, I honestly thought, “This is so unfriendly.” I couldn’t see the food. I didn’t know what would come out. I couldn’t choose with confidence. In Japan, the system is simple and reliable: you see first, then you choose. Here, that system didn’t exist. And that discomfort had a clear origin in my childhood.
When I was young and couldn’t read well, I couldn’t order from a text menu. I would leave my seat, go outside, and look at the plastic food displays in the window. Only then could I point and say, “That one,” and finally place my order. Back then, Japan didn’t just show photos—it showed food in three dimensions. Dishes weren’t something you had to interpret; they were something you could understand at a glance. That’s why a text-only menu felt so unreliable. Choosing unseen food felt like a small gamble.
A Menu Is Not a Catalog
But this wasn’t simply a matter of being unfriendly. American restaurants are designed differently from the ground up. In California and across much of the Western world, a menu is not a catalog. It is part of the experience. Food isn’t something to be fully revealed from the beginning; it’s something that remains uncertain until it arrives at the table. If you don’t understand, you ask the server. You listen, you imagine, and sometimes you order something you don’t fully grasp. There is an underlying assumption: a bit of mismatch is part of the fun.
Why There Are No Photos
There’s also a cultural code at play. In the U.S.,
Photos = casual
Text = refined
Photo menus are common in fast food or tourist-oriented places, while more serious restaurants often avoid them. Instead, they rely on words—carefully crafted descriptions that build anticipation. This isn’t just design; it’s a statement about the kind of experience being offered. There are also practical reasons. Photos can raise expectations too much. Even a slight gap between image and reality can lower satisfaction. So it’s often safer not to include them at all. In some cases, leaving things to the imagination actually leads to a more satisfying experience.
Japan: Show First, Then Choose
Japan, on the other hand, has consistently taken the opposite approach. From plastic food displays to printed photos, and now to tablets and smartphones, the format has evolved, but the core idea remains the same: show first, then let people choose. Present the finished dish, remove uncertainty, and make ordering easy for anyone. It’s a system built on kindness and clarity—values deeply embedded in the culture.
The Joy of Imagining
That initial discomfort stayed with me for a while. But after visiting similar restaurants a few times, something began to change. I read the words. I assembled the dish in my mind. I imagined my own version of the perfect plate. And when the food arrived, it was slightly different from what I had pictured. But even that difference became enjoyable. Before long, the menus that once felt unappetizing had turned into something else entirely—a device that expanded anticipation.
Menus without photos are not unfriendly. They are designed to make you imagine. At first, it feels disorienting. But over time, you adjust. You stop “looking” at food and start “picturing” it. And then you realize: appetite isn’t born from sight alone. It can rise, fully and vividly, from words.
In 1990s America, these kinds of discoveries could be found almost everywhere in everyday life.
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