Change order of record

This is one of those simple things that is sure to turn into a tough problem. I wonder if you can point me in the right direction.

Here's the issue. I am using Data Assist to manage a menu for a restaurant. They have a number of appetizers, entrees, and deserts. I store them in a table called menu with a field for course that I filter to show all appetizers, all entrees, or all deserts on a different page.

Say the owner decides he has steak, chicken, and filet on the entrees and suddenly decides that he wants filet to display first on the entree menu. How can I change the order? I realize I can create a field in my table called "itemOrder" that he could assign a number to. But if I have Steak (1), Chicken (2), and Filet (3), then changing itemOrder of Filet from 3 to 1, means that I have to alter the number for all the items.

There has to be an easier way of changing the display order. Any suggestions?

So I went with a variable "order" to handle the menu order. I'm still not entirely sure how I will handle updating this field, as it seems that moving one menu item up the list still involves making changes to the rest of the menu items. Here's picture of the database contents.

reordering the records is not supported by data assist. some of the regular posters have come up with a tutorial for how this can be done using AJAX in this thread:
showthread.php?t=9353