Digital menu boards: controlling daily menu, allergens and prices centrally

In gastronomy the menu changes daily: lunch menu, sold-out dishes, new prices from the supplier. Anyone who updates that on chalkboard, paper menu and website loses a quarter of an hour every day and makes mistakes. In consultations with take-aways, canteens and restaurants that is exactly the trigger for digital menu boards.

What a digital menu board does better

A menu board is a screen above the counter or at the entrance that shows the offer, prices and images and is maintained centrally. The difference from the chalkboard is not the look but the schedule: breakfast until 10.30, lunch until 2 p.m., then the evening menu – automatically, at every location at the same time. Sold-out dishes disappear with a tap on the tablet.

Daily menu automated

The daily menu is entered once a week in a spreadsheet or directly in the signage software – Monday to Friday, two to three menus each. The screen fetches the right day itself. Anyone who keeps the weekly menu in Excel or a Google spreadsheet anyway can connect that file as a data source; the kitchen keeps maintaining its spreadsheet, the screen displays it.

Displaying allergens correctly

The Swiss food information ordinance requires that guests be informed about the 14 declarable allergens – in writing or verbally, provided a written note states that staff will give information. On the menu board, abbreviations or symbols after the dish and a legend at the edge have proved themselves. What matters is that the allergens are attached to the dish and not to the slide: if the dish is changed in the database, the labelling changes everywhere.

Price changes central

Under the price indication ordinance, prices for food and drinks must be clearly visible and current – at the entrance too. With three locations and one price rise per quarter that is a project with printed menus, a field in the software with menu boards. Prices belong in a single place, ideally in the till.

Screen size and installation above the counter

Connection to the POS system

The biggest benefit arises when till and menu board share the same item master. Then: price changed in the till, price changed on the board; item marked as sold out, item off the board. Many modern POS systems offer an interface or an export for that. We check before the quote what your system can do and otherwise build an interim solution via a shared spreadsheet. Call displays for orders ready to collect run on the same screen.

Conclusion

Digital menu boards pay off where the menu changes often, several locations should look the same or guests decide in the queue. What matters: schedules, allergens attached to the dish rather than the slide and a connection to the till. We plan screen size, mount and software and check on site how a board works from two metres.