Publishing a menu that stays true to what the kitchen serves.
A menu priced two years ago is losing margin on every plate while wages, NIC and suppliers rise. Work out plate cost, GP and VAT on one dish before you change a single price.
The sauce changed supplier last week and the menu still says what it said in spring. Here is how a UK restaurant keeps allergen information right at the table and online, and what that costs.
An old PDF, an allergen line that no longer matches the dish and a menu that is only a photo cost bookings and invite disputes. This guide covers what an online menu must show and how to keep it right.
Guests who booked on a quoted per-head price can arrive to a higher bill and a dispute at the table. Tell new guests one way and booked parties another, in writing.
Guests check the wine list on a phone before they book. When it is a photo or a PDF, the glass and bottle prices are the first thing to go missing.
A guest with an allergy reads the menu online before ordering. When the allergen sheet sits apart from the dishes, it can be wrong the day a recipe changes.
Latin dish names are the menu's identity, but a guest new to the food searches in everyday words. A plain line under each dish closes that mismatch without losing the names.
A children's page typed online without a plan ends up scattered or copied. Parents scroll past everything, and a duplicated row risks an outdated allergen line.
A retyped menu row can show sea bass under a lamb photograph with the lamb's stale allergen ticks. A new row for a new dish means every field was set for the plate being served.
When the large size, the paid topping and the choice of base sit only in the description, guests cannot pick them. The extra goes unsold and the kitchen chases a missing choice.
A menu still in the chef's notebook means a missing menu online in opening week. Built by hand as dishes are confirmed, it reaches the same live menu a scan would.
On a live site, once a scanned menu is applied, saving is publishing. A misread decimal point that nobody checked becomes the wrong price a guest sees and orders at.
