Stars—This is easy. Your menu should highlight your Stars.
Plow-horses—You may want to create more profitable versions of these menu items. For instance, soup-and-salad specials often fall into this category, and you might try turning such a special into a more profitable three-salad sampler.
Puzzles—Make sure your servers are promoting these items and investigate whether customers like the taste of the items in question. Sometimes simply lowering prices will increase sales volume enough to produce higher overall profits, and you also may want to consider reinventing items in this category.
Dogs—While omitting such items may be an option, you can’t necessarily omit everything in this category (just think of a grilled cheese sandwich that is a staple among your youngest customers). Your best option may sometimes be to deemphasize these items by simply listing their title and prices on your menu and not putting any further effort into their promotion.
Once you have worked through this step, your menu-engineering goals are in place and you are ready to begin the menu design phase.