Menus

The Menus page is where everything you sell is set up. Items, prices, photos, allergens, the way categories are arranged on the iPad, the public online menu your customers scroll on their phones — it all lives here.

You’ll come back to this page whenever you:

• Add a new dish or drink
• Change a price or update a description
• Mark something as 86’d (out for the night)
• Re-arrange how items appear on the iPad screen
• Update your public online menu
• Roll out a new menu (lunch, dinner, brunch, Christmas)
• Build reusable option groups like Steak doneness or Side choices

You’ll find it in the left sidebar under Menus.

The four tabs

The Menus page splits into four tabs across the top. Each one is a different job:

The Modifiers tab shows a small number badge whenever you have at least one group set up.

The rest of this guide walks through each tab in order.

Menu Builder

This is the default tab. The page is split in two:

• Left sidebar — Your Menus. Every menu you’ve built. Each row shows:
  • The menu name
  • An Active / Inactive status badge
  • A short stats line — e.g. “3 categories · 12 items”
  • An owner location badge if the menu is a shared menu being pulled in from another location
• Right panel — the menu’s contents. Categories at the top level, with the items inside each one.

Creating a new menu

A “menu” is a named container — Lunch, Dinner, Brunch, Christmas Tasting, etc. Most venues have a handful, swapped in and out depending on the service.

Editing or deleting a menu

Select the menu in the sidebar, then look at the top‑right of the right panel for the ⋯ (more) button. It opens a small menu with three options:

• Edit Menu — change the name or which locations can see it.
• Deactivate Menu (or Activate Menu) — hides the menu from your iPads without deleting it. Use this for seasonal menus you’ll want back later. The badge in the sidebar flips to Inactive.
• Delete Menu (red) — archives the menu. A confirmation appears first; the menu is hidden from active views afterwards.

The menu’s header bar

When you have a menu selected, the top of the right panel shows:

• The menu name, bold
• A “Visible at N locations” pill — tap it to open a small popover and tick which locations the menu should appear in
• A live item count

To the right, four buttons:

• Upload with AI (purple, with a sparkles icon) — imports a menu from a PDF or photo using AI. See Importing a menu with AI below.
• Add Item — opens the full item editor.
• Add Category — adds a new category to the menu.
• ⋯ — the menu actions described just above.

Searching across a menu

Once the selected menu has at least one category, a search box appears at the top: “Search items across all categories…”. Type any part of an item’s name or description and the list filters in real time. The × button on the right clears the search.

If nothing matches, you’ll see a “No results found” message with a Clear search button.

Categories

A category is a grouping inside a menu — Starters, Mains, Desserts, Cocktails, Beers. Items always belong to one category.

Each category appears in the right panel as a collapsible card:

• A chevron on the left expands or collapses it
• The category name in bold
• A small badge showing how many items are inside
• A ⋯ button on the right with: Edit Category, Duplicate, and Delete (red)

Adding a category

Editing a category

Tap ⋯ on the category → Edit Category. You can change:

• Category Name
• Default Prep Station (only shown if you’ve set up prep stations) — the kitchen station that any item in this category will be routed to when a ticket is printed. Leave it on No station assigned if you’d rather set the station per item.

Deleting a category

Tap ⋯ → Delete. Because deleting also removes items, the dialog gives you a choice:

• Move items to: pick another category from the dropdown — the items are moved over and only the empty category is deleted
• Don’t pick anything — the category and all of its items are archived together

Two buttons reflect the choice:

• Delete and Move Items — only enabled when you’ve picked a target category
• Delete Category and Items (red) — only enabled when no target is picked

Duplicating a category

Tap ⋯ → Duplicate to create a copy of the category, with all its items copied across. Handy for Lunch Mains → Dinner Mains when most items overlap.

Items

Items are the actual things you sell. Each one sits in a category and has a name, price, photo, allergens, and any options (modifiers).

In the right panel, every item is one row inside its category card. From left to right:

• A drag handle (visible on hover) — drag the item to a different category to move it
• A colour bar + thumbnail. If you haven’t uploaded a photo, you’ll see the item’s POS colour with the first letter of its name on top
• The name in bold, plus a small red 86d badge if the item is currently 86’d
• The description (or modifier count if there’s no description)
• A row of allergen tags in amber — up to four are shown, with +N more if there are extra
• The price on the right
• A ⋯ button with: Edit Item, 86 Item (or Un‑86 Item), Duplicate, Delete (red)

The full item editor

Adding a new item or editing an existing one opens the same big dialog. It’s split into a few sections.

Photo

A square dashed box at the top‑left. Tap to pick an image from your computer; you’ll see a quick Uploading… spinner while it uploads. To remove a photo, hover over it and tap the × in the corner.

A photo isn’t required, but it makes the item much easier to spot on the iPad and shows up on the public online menu too.

Name, price, category

Three fields side by side at the top:

• Name (required) — what the customer sees, e.g. Margherita Pizza
• Price (£ symbol prefilled) — the regular sale price
• Category (required) — which category in the current menu the item should sit in. Editing the category here moves the item between categories on save

Description

A short paragraph about the item — ingredients, preparation, what makes it special. Shows on the QR/online menu and on the iPad sidebar.

Kitchen Label

A different name to print on the kitchen ticket and show on the KDS (the kitchen screen). Leave it blank to use the regular item name. Useful when your customer‑facing names are long or fancy (“Maison Mère’s Slow‑Cooked Coq au Vin”) but the kitchen needs something terse (“Coq au Vin”).

POS Display Colour

A grid of 21 preset colours — Navy, Blue, Slate, Maroon, Red, Orange, Brown, Green, Teal, etc. Tap one to pick it. The chosen colour shows a thin ring with a tick.

This colour is the background of the item’s button on the iPad. Restaurants typically use one colour family per category — e.g. greens for vegetarian dishes — so servers can find things quickly during a rush.

Allergens & Dietary

A row of toggle buttons for the 14 standard allergens: Cereals/Gluten, Crustaceans, Eggs, Fish, Peanuts, Soybeans, Milk, Nuts, Celery, Mustard, Sesame, Sulphites, Lupin, Molluscs. Tap to switch one on or off.

Above the buttons there’s an AI Suggest button (with a sparkles icon). Tap it once you’ve typed an item name and description — the system reads them and suggests likely allergens for you to confirm. The button is disabled until there’s a name to work from, and shows “Analyzing…” while it thinks.

Prep Station & VAT Rate

Two boxes side by side near the bottom.

• Prep Station (optional) — the kitchen station that should print this item’s ticket. Overrides the category default, if there is one.
• VAT Rate — pick Standard (20%), Reduced (5%) or Zero (0%). The note underneath reminds you that Zero is normally for cold takeaway food.

Modifier Groups

The bottom section. Modifier groups are the way to offer choices like sizes, sides, doneness, extras. The section title sits above a + Add Group dropdown with two options:

• Create New — build a new group right here, just for this item
• Add from Library — pick an existing reusable group from the Modifiers tab

If there are none yet, you’ll see a dashed empty box: “No modifier groups yet — Add groups to offer options like sizes or toppings.”

Each group you add appears as a card with:

• The group name (e.g. Choose your size)
• A Required toggle on the right
• A Selection Type: Single choice, Unlimited, or Custom range (you’ll get Min / Max number inputs if you pick custom)
• A list of options — each one a name, an optional kitchen label, and a price (use £0 for the included default)
• + Add Option at the bottom of the list

Groups added from the library are read‑only on this page and tagged Shared in blue — to change one, head to the Modifiers tab. A small link icon detaches the shared group from this item without deleting it.

Saving the item

Tap Create Item (or Save Changes when editing) at the bottom. If you’re editing an existing item, a quick confirmation dialog summarises just the fields that changed — old value crossed out, new value bold — so you can double‑check before committing.

If a change moves the item to a different category, you’ll see a blue “Category Change” note in the summary too.

If you got distracted and didn’t actually change anything, the dialog politely says “No changes detected”.

86’ing an item (out of stock)

When you run out of something mid‑shift, you don’t want to delete it — you just want it off the iPad until tomorrow. That’s an 86.

Tap ⋯ on the item → 86 Item. The item now shows a red 86d badge and is hidden from the iPad’s order screen and from the online menu. Tap Un‑86 Item when you’ve restocked to bring it back.

You can also 86 items from the iPad itself in the middle of a shift — see the POS Order Taking guide for that.

Re‑arranging items between categories

Hover over the item, grab the drag handle that appears on the left, and drop the item into a different category card.

While dragging, the item turns semi‑transparent and the category you’re hovering over highlights with a tinted ring so you can see where it’ll land.

When you let go, a quick “Save Changes?” dialog asks you to confirm the move — it shows the item moving from the old category to the new one. Tap Save Changes to commit, or Cancel to put it back.

Sharing a menu across locations

If your account has more than one venue, you can share a single menu so any change you make is reflected at every location — no more updating five copies of the same lunch menu.

• From the menu header, the small “X locations” button opens a popover with a checkbox per location. Tick the venues that should see this menu, untick the ones that shouldn’t, then tap Save Changes.
• From a location that’s pulling in a shared menu, the right panel shows a banner: “Shared menu from [Location Name]” with a Delink button.

Delinking a shared menu

When you tap Delink, a dialog asks what to do with the shared menus on this location:

• Duplicate menus — copy them so this location has its own independent versions to edit (great if a sister venue wants to start customising)
• Start fresh — remove the shared menus and start with an empty menu list (great if you’re switching this location to its own concept)

Pick one to confirm, or Cancel to keep the share in place.

Importing menus from another location

If you switch to a location that doesn’t have any menus of its own yet, but your account already has menus at other locations, the dashboard will pop up a small modal: “Import menus from another location?”

• A dropdown lists every other location in your account, each with the number of menus on it (e.g. “Soho — 3 menus”)
• Pick one and tap Import Menu to copy every menu (with all categories, items, modifiers and prices) across
• Or dismiss the modal and start from scratch with + New Menu

This is the fastest way to spin up a second venue — import, then tweak the name, prices, or availability to match the new site.

Importing a menu with AI

Setting up your menu from scratch by typing every item is slow. The Upload with AI button reads a PDF or photo of your existing menu and turns it into categories and items for you.

The button sits at the top‑right of the menu header, in purple with a sparkles icon — it opens the AI Menu Analyzer dialog, a guided wizard that walks you through upload, review and import.

Step 1 — Upload

The dialog opens on an empty dropzone with the prompt “Drop your menu files here — or click to browse”.

• Accepted formats: PDF, PNG, JPG, WebP
• Limits: up to 20 files, 10 MB each, 50 MB total across the batch
• Drop or browse: drag files into the box, or click anywhere inside it to open the file picker

As soon as you add files the dropzone flips to a thumbnail grid — images show a preview, PDFs show a document icon, and each tile displays the filename and file size in MB. An Add more tile with a ➕ sits at the end of the grid so you can append additional files. Hover a tile and tap the × in its top‑right corner to remove a single file.

Below the grid you’ll see a running tally — e.g. “3 files selected — 8.4 MB total”.

At the bottom of the dialog, a small What AI will extract panel lists what the analyzer looks for:

• Categories and sections
• Items, prices, and descriptions
• Allergen detection
• Modifier groups and add‑ons

If a file is the wrong type, too big, or pushes you past the limits, a red banner appears immediately explaining why — fix the problem and carry on.

When you’re ready, tap Analyze Menu (the purple button with a sparkles icon, bottom‑right). The Cancel button closes the dialog without saving anything.

Step 2 — Processing

The dialog switches to a clean “working” screen with a pulsing sparkles icon and a three‑step tracker across the top:

1. Upload — the file is sent to the server
2. Extract — OCR pulls the text off each PDF page. For image files this stage is skipped and replaced with a quick in‑browser resize to fit the upload limit.
3. Analyze — the AI reads the extracted text (and/or images) and structures it into categories, items, prices, allergens and modifiers

Each circle in the tracker lights up as its stage starts, then turns green with a tick when it’s done. Underneath, a thin progress bar and a live percentage update as work progresses — typical stages show at around 15% (upload), 45% (OCR), 80% (AI parse) and 100% (complete). A caption tells you what’s happening right now, e.g. “AI is analyzing your menu…”.

The only control available on this screen is Cancel, which aborts the run and returns to Step 1.

Most menus finish in under a minute. Very long PDFs or large batches can take a bit longer.

Step 3 — Preview & edit

When the AI finishes, the dialog opens on a full preview of the extracted menu — this is where you tidy up before committing.

At the top, two fields:

• Menu Name — auto‑filled from the restaurant name the AI detected (or the first file’s name if it didn’t), and fully editable
• Description (optional) — free‑text description to save alongside the menu

Just below, four summary tiles show live counts as you edit:

• Categories · Items · Mod Groups · Modifiers

Then the structured menu in a scrollable area. Every category is a collapsible card (expanded by default) with:

• The category name in an inline editable field
• A pill showing the item count (e.g. “12 items”)
• A 🗑 trash icon to delete the whole category

Expand a category and each item shows:

• An editable name field
• An editable price field (with a £ prefix, blank if the AI couldn’t find a price)
• An editable description line underneath
• Allergen chips — yellow badges with a warning triangle for each allergen the AI detected. The analyzer recognises the 14 UK legally‑declarable allergens: Gluten, Crustaceans, Eggs, Fish, Peanuts, Soy, Dairy, Nuts, Celery, Mustard, Sesame, Sulphites, Lupin, Molluscs
• Modifier groups (if any) — nested under the item with the group name, a Required tag when applicable, and a comma‑separated list of the modifier options
• A 🗑 trash icon to remove the item

Edit anything directly — typo in a name, wrong price, missing allergen, category you don’t actually run. Collapse categories you’ve already reviewed to keep the list manageable.

Footer controls:

• Back — returns to Step 1 with your files still selected, so you can add more or swap them out
• Import Menu — commits everything you see to the database. Disabled until the menu name is filled in and at least one category remains.

Step 4 — Importing

Tapping Import Menu switches the dialog to a brief “working” screen: a spinning loader, the heading “Importing your menu…”, and the caption “Creating categories, items, and modifiers”. There are no controls during this step — it only takes a few seconds.

Step 5 — Done

A green tick card appears with the heading Import Complete and a 2×2 grid of final counts: Categories, Items, Mod Groups, Modifiers. Tap the green Done button (bottom‑right) to close — your new menu is now in the sidebar, ready to edit, attach to locations, or publish.

If something goes wrong

Any failure during processing or import throws the dialog into an error state: a red alert icon, the heading “Something went wrong”, and the error message returned by the server (for example, a file that’s too big, an OCR failure, or a parse error).

Footer controls on the error screen:

• Close — dismiss the dialog entirely
• Try Again — jump back to Step 1 with everything cleared, ready for a fresh upload

Modifiers

The Modifiers tab is your reusable library of option groups. Anything that’s offered on more than one item — Steak doneness, Side choices, Sauce options, Sizes — should live here.

The advantage: change a price or rename an option once, and every item that uses it updates instantly.

The page shows a single table with these columns:

A search box at the top filters the table by group name or by the names of the options inside.

Creating a modifier group

Tap + Add Group at the top‑right.

Editing or deleting a group

The ⋯ in the Actions column has Edit and Delete.

If you delete a group that’s already attached to items, you’ll see an amber warning listing the affected products: “This group is used by X products… Deleting will remove this modifier group from all products.” Tap Delete to confirm or Cancel to back out.

POS Editor

The POS Editor tab is where you design what the iPad’s order‑taking screen actually looks like for each menu — the grid of category buttons across the top, and the grid of item buttons beneath each one.

You’ll typically come here once when you first set things up and then occasionally to tweak the layout, for example to put the bestsellers first or to give cocktails their own colour scheme.

How it works

• Pick a menu from the dropdown at the top — the editor shows the grid your servers will see for that menu.
• The top row is your categories. Drag them around to reorder, or drag the right edge to make a category button wider.
• Below that is the items grid for the currently selected category. Drag items between cells to rearrange. Drag an item to a different category to move it there.
• Use the icon picker to give each category a small icon (filterable — type to search the icon library).

Changes save when you tap the save button at the top of the editor.

Online Menu

The Online Menu tab controls the public, customer‑facing version of your menu — the page that opens when someone scans your table QR code or taps a link from your website.

The page is split in two:

• Left side — settings (split into four sub‑tabs: Menu, QR, Branding, Display)
• Right side — live preview with a mobile / desktop toggle so you can see exactly how it’ll look on a phone or a laptop

Whenever you change a setting, the preview updates straight away.

The top action bar

Across the top of the Online Menu tab you’ll always see:

• A Published (green, globe icon) or Not published (grey) pill so you can see at a glance whether guests can actually see the menu
• Open live — opens the live menu in a new tab (at …/menu/[slug]) so you can check it exactly as a customer would
• Save changes — commits anything you’ve edited in the settings panel. After save, the button briefly flips to a green Saved state.
• Publish or Unpublish — turns the public menu on or off. Publishing gives you the live URL to share; unpublishing takes the page offline until you publish again.

Menu sub‑tab

Pick which of your menus should be visible on the public page. This is a multi‑select — tick as many as you want to show. Most venues only publish one or two (e.g. Lunch and Dinner); seasonal or staff‑only menus stay unticked.

QR sub‑tab

Two settings here:

• Menu URL slug — the bit at the end of your public link, e.g. your-restaurant. Picks your link’s address: …/menu/your-restaurant. Choose something short and recognisable.
• Full menu link — the complete URL to share. There’s a copy button to drop it straight into an email, an Instagram bio, or a print order for QR table stickers.

Branding sub‑tab

This is where the menu starts to look like your venue.

• Logo — upload your logo. It appears at the top of the public menu.
• Primary colour — sets the accent colour used for headers and dividers.
• Font style — pick the typeface family that suits your brand.
• Display name — the restaurant name that appears at the top of the menu (defaults to Restaurant until you set it).
• Show logo on menu — toggle. Turn off for text‑only branding.
• Show restaurant name — toggle. Turn off if your logo already has the name built in, so the header doesn’t repeat itself.

Display sub‑tab

A short list of toggles that decide which information appears on the public menu:

• Show images — turn off for a more minimal, text‑only style
• Show prices — turn off if you’d rather customers see the menu without prices (uncommon but used at some private‑dining venues)
• Show descriptions — turn off to keep the page short
• Show allergens & dietary icons — turn off to hide allergen badges (we recommend leaving this on for safety)

Quick recap — the moves you’ll do most

• Add a new dish → Menu Builder → select the menu → + Add Item → fill in name, price, category, photo → Create Item
• Change a price → tap the item → Edit Item → change the price → Save Changes (the confirmation shows old → new)
• Run out of something → tap ⋯ on the item → 86 Item → tap Un‑86 Item when it’s back
• Move an item to another category → drag its handle into a different category card → confirm
• Build a reusable option group → Modifiers tab → + Add Group → name it, set the rule, add options → Create Group
• Attach an option group to an item → open the item → scroll to Modifier Groups → + Add Group → Add from Library
• Get a menu live on a QR code → Online Menu → QR → set the slug, copy the link → print it
• Import a paper menu in one go → Menu Builder → Upload with AI → upload the PDF → review → Import

Next steps

• Floor Plan — design your restaurant layout so items can be linked to tables
• Prep Stations — set up the kitchen stations referenced in items and categories
• Discount Presets — manage the discount buttons your team can apply at the till
• POS Order Taking — see how everything you set up here shows up on the iPad