A menu is an interface
It has a first screen, a scroll and a conversion event. Most are laid out as though people read them top to bottom. Almost nobody does.
A menu is a piece of interface design that happens to be printed. It has a first screen, a scroll, a decision point and a conversion event. Yet it is usually treated as a document: set top to bottom, organised by kitchen section, and designed around how the food is made rather than how a decision is taken.
Reading is not the behaviour
People do not read menus. They scan them under mild social pressure, often while talking, usually while hungry, and almost always faster than the venue imagines. A decision gets made early and the rest of the page is read only to confirm it.
The dish a venue most wants to sell is usually in the place people look last.
Structure is a pricing decision
Where an item sits changes how often it is chosen more reliably than what it costs. That makes menu structure a commercial decision wearing a design costume, and one that is frequently delegated to whoever is laying out the print file.
What to do about it
Sit in your own venue for one service and watch where eyes go before anyone speaks. Then compare that to what you most want to sell. The gap between those two things is usually the cheapest margin available to a restaurant, and it costs nothing but an afternoon to find.