A menu changes more often than anything else in a restaurant. The soup changes daily, a supplier lets you down, the price of butter moves again, and the laminated card on the table is out of date by Thursday. A menu QR code puts the menu on the customer’s own phone, where you can change it between services without reprinting anything.

What goes on the page

• Your dishes, grouped by course. Type the course name on each dish and they group themselves, so moving something from starters to small plates takes one word.
• Prices you can change in seconds, including “market price” or “from 6.00” where a number would be a lie.
• An allergen statement at the foot of the menu that points people at your staff, where the law expects that conversation to happen.
• An order or pay link, if you already use a system, so the code does double duty.
• A booking link for the table they will want next week.
• A review link, shown at the bottom, at the one moment somebody has actually just eaten your food.
• Your name, address and phone, in your own colours with your own logo.

Why this beats the QR menus everyone got sick of in 2021

Lockdown menus were bad for reasons that had nothing to do with QR codes. They dumped people into a PDF that needed pinching and zooming, they were slow, several of them wanted an app, and a few of them quietly tracked whoever scanned. Diners were right to dislike them.

The page behind these codes is built for a phone from the start, so there is nothing to pinch. It loads in well under a second. There is no app, no account and no cookie banner, because there is nothing following anybody about. And it is a supplement to a printed menu, not a replacement for one: the sensible arrangement is a printed menu for the table and a code for the specials, the wine list, the allergen detail and the long tail nobody wants to reprint.

Who this suits

Cafes and coffee bars with a board that changes weekly. Pubs running a specials board and a separate Sunday menu. Small restaurants with a wine list too long for the card. Street food traders who cannot carry printed menus. Bakeries and delis with allergen detail that will not fit on a ticket. Anywhere the menu moves faster than the printer.

One code, or one per table

Both work, and the difference matters more than it looks.

One code for the venue is the simplest thing: the same code on every table, all pointing at the same menu. Change the menu once and every table follows.

A code per table gives you a second menu without a second menu. Point the lunch tables at the lunch menu and the bar at the bar snacks, or run a different code in the garden. Your scan reports then tell you which parts of the room are actually being used, which is a harder thing to find out than it sounds.

Either way the printed sticker never changes. Only the page behind it does.

Getting the code onto the table

A table code lives a hard life. It gets wiped down several times a day, sat on, spilled on and picked at. A paper one lasts about a fortnight.

• Domed stickers are what we make: a printed code under a thick clear resin dome, which is waterproof, wipeable, sits proud of the table and will not peel at the corner. This is the same doming we do commercially, so the finish is a proper one rather than a laminate.
• Print your own if you would rather start today. Our printing and laminating guide covers the mistakes that stop a home-made code scanning, and a laminated card in a table stand works perfectly well.

Whichever you choose, the same subscription runs behind it. The code and the hosted page are the product. The sticker is just how it gets onto the table.

What the scan reports tell a kitchen

Scans are timestamped, so the shape of your service shows up in the chart: the eleven o’clock coffee trade, the Sunday rush, the Tuesday that never recovers. That is worth knowing before you decide who to roster.

Run a second code on the specials board and you can see whether anybody is reading it. Put a code on the takeaway bag and you find out whether takeaway customers ever come back to the menu. None of this is a substitute for standing in your own room and watching, but it puts numbers to things that are otherwise arguments. There is more on what the reports show.

Common questions

Do I still need a printed menu?

Most rooms should have one. A code is better than paper for the things that change constantly and worse than paper for the thing somebody wants to hold while they decide. Use both: printed for the core menu, the code for specials, the full wine list, allergen detail and anything seasonal.

Does this satisfy allergen law?

Not on its own, and nobody should sell it to you as though it does. UK allergen rules turn on how the food is sold, and for food ordered at a table the requirement is that the information is available and that customers are pointed to it. A menu page is a good place to hold the detail. It does not remove the need for your staff to be able to answer the question, and the statement on the page says exactly that. Check your position with your local environmental health team.

What if the kitchen runs out of something mid service?

Edit the dish out, or change the price, from a phone behind the pass. The change is live immediately and every code in the room is already pointing at it.

Do my customers need an app?

No. The camera on any phone made in the last several years opens it. There is nothing to install, no account, and no cookie banner, because the page sets no cookies and loads nothing from anybody else.

What happens if my subscription lapses?

Nothing sudden. The menu keeps working through a sixty day grace period while we send renewal reminders, so a missed email never means a room full of dead codes. After that the account goes dormant and can be reactivated, and your codes and pages come back exactly as they were.

Can I have different menus at different times of day?

Yes, in two ways. Either keep one code and edit the menu when service changes, which suits a kitchen that switches cleanly at a set time, or run separate codes for separate menus and put the right one on the right table.