Yelp Product Design: Adding a New Dish to a Restaurant's Menu
Company: Yelp
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
In a product manager interview at Yelp, you get a short, deliberately open product-design prompt: how would you add a new food item to a restaurant's menu?
Nothing else is specified. Settle who is adding the item and which menu it goes on, then walk through how the item gets added, how you would know the experience works, and what could go wrong.
```hint Pin down the actor first
The design changes a lot depending on who adds the item and why. Choose one actor and one reason the dish is being added, and let that choice shape every step.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Is the menu the one diners see on the restaurant's Yelp page, or the restaurant's own menu, as in the business deciding to start serving a new dish?
- Who is adding the item: a verified owner or manager, restaurant staff, or a diner contributing a dish they ordered?
- Are we designing for an independent restaurant, or for a chain whose menus already live in a point-of-sale or online-ordering system?
- Which details matter for a menu item here: just a name and price, or also photos, descriptions, dietary labels and the times it is available?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A stated interpretation of the prompt and a chosen primary user, with a reason for the choice
- The step-by-step add flow, including checks, preview and how the item reaches diners
- Pain points specific to restaurant menus, such as frequent price changes, specials and size variants, and how the design handles them
- Success metrics for both the person adding items and the diners reading the menu
- Edge cases and abuse: duplicate items, wrong prices and unverified edits
### Follow-up Questions
- An owner has a long printed menu and no time to type items one at a time. How would you get it online?
- How would you let diners add or correct items without letting competitors or pranksters vandalize a menu?
- Menu accuracy improves at launch, but owners rarely come back to update prices. What would you change?
Overview: A beginner product design prompt from a Yelp PM interview: how would you add a new food item to a restaurant's menu? It tests framing an open question, choosing the right user, designing a practical add flow that copes with messy real-world menus, and defining success metrics for both restaurant owners and diners.