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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) — and see it grey out live on every iPad
  • 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
  • Ask the Zavo Co‑Pilot to do bulk edits in plain English — “raise all pizza prices 10%”, “add a Gluten‑Free modifier to every sandwich”
  • Preview or revert any change anyone ever made via the Menu history drawer

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:

TabWhat it’s for
Menu BuilderThe main one. Build your menus, add categories, add items, edit prices and photos.
ModifiersA reusable library of option groups (e.g. Steak doneness, Side choices) that can be attached to many items at once.
POS EditorDesign the button layout your servers see on the iPad — drag categories and items into the grid.
Online MenuThe public, customer‑facing menu people open by QR code or link. Theme, logo, what to show or hide.

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.


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
    • Status badges — a row can have up to three:
      • Green Published — the menu is live on POS devices
      • Blue Scheduled MM/DD HH:MM — the menu will auto-publish at the shown date and time
      • Red Hidden — the menu exists but is hidden from POS devices
    • 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.

In the Your Menus sidebar, tap “+ New Menu”

A small dialog opens.

Fill in the basics

  • Menu Name — required. Keep it short and clear (Lunch, Dinner, Christmas Eve).
  • Description — optional. A note for your team about when it runs or what’s in it.
  • Visible at Locations — only matters if you have more than one venue. Pick which locations should see this menu, or leave it on All locations (default) to make it available everywhere.

Tap “Create Menu”

The new menu appears in the sidebar and is ready to fill with categories.

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. The options that appear depend on the menu’s current state:

  • Edit Menu — change the name or which locations can see it.
  • Publish Now (on draft or scheduled menus) — makes the menu live on POS devices immediately.
  • Schedule Publication (on draft menus) — pick a future date and time; the menu automatically promotes to Published at that moment without any further action needed. The sidebar badge turns blue and shows the scheduled date.
  • Change Schedule (on scheduled menus) — pick a new date/time to reschedule the auto-publish.
  • Cancel Schedule (on scheduled menus) — reverts the menu back to draft.
  • Unpublish (Revert to Draft) (on published menus) — pulls the menu off POS devices and returns it to draft.
  • Hide Menu (or Show Menu) — hides the menu from POS devices without changing its published state. The sidebar badge turns red when hidden. Use this for seasonal menus you’ll want to show again later.
  • 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, a row of 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.
  • Menu history — opens a drawer listing every edit ever made to your menus, with a preview and a one‑click revert per change. See Menu history below.
  • Copilot (blue, with the Zavo logo) — opens the Zavo Co‑Pilot side panel. Describe what you want changed in plain English and the co‑pilot edits the menu live. See Zavo Co‑Pilot 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

In the menu header, tap “+ Add Category”

A small dialog opens.

Type a category name

e.g. Appetizers. That’s the only required field.

Tap “Create Category”

The new category appears in the right panel, expanded and ready for items.

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.
ℹ️ Why set a default prep station?

Setting it once on the category saves you from picking the same station on every starter you add later. Items you add to this category will inherit the station automatically (you can still override it on individual items).

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
⚠️ No way to undo

Once items are archived, they’re gone from the menu. Always move them to another category if there’s any chance you’ll want them back.

Duplicating a category

Tap Duplicate to create a copy of the category, with all its items copied across. Handy for Lunch MainsDinner 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).

Inside each category card, items lay out in a responsive grid — 2 columns on narrow screens, 3 on medium, 4 on wide. Each tile is a horizontal card you can drag into another category card to move it.

From left to right on every tile:

  • A full‑height colour block (56px wide). If you’ve uploaded a photo, the photo fills the block; otherwise you see the item’s POS colour with the first letter of its name centred on top
  • The name in bold
  • A small 86 badge next to the name when the item is out of stock
  • A compact meta line — price, then a short description or “N mods” when there are modifier groups but no description
  • A button with: Edit Item, 86 Item (or Un‑86 Item), Duplicate, Delete (red)

When you hover the tile, a drag handle reveals on the left so you can grab it and drop it into another category card.

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 41 preset colours organised in six rows:

  1. Blues and greys — Navy, Blue, Light Blue, Slate, Cool Gray, Light Gray, Black
  2. Reds, oranges, browns — Maroon, Red, Orange, Brown, Taupe, Beige, Dark Gray
  3. Greens and teals — Dark Green, Green, Lime, Teal, Sage, Mint, Silver
  4. Purples and lavenders — Deep Purple, Purple, Lavender, Plum, Mauve, Dusty Purple, Lilac
  5. Pinks, yellows, golds — Magenta, Pink, Rose, Gold, Yellow, Cream, Tan
  6. Corals, teals, olives, charcoal — Coral, Salmon, Deep Teal, Turquoise, Olive, Charcoal

Tap one to pick it. The chosen colour shows a thin ring with a tick. The same 41 colours are available on the iPad and on the handheld so button colours stay consistent across devices.

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.

ℹ️ The co‑pilot uses these colours too

When the Zavo Co‑Pilot changes an item’s colour for you, it only picks from the 41 palette values above — it can’t invent new hex codes.

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.

⚠️ Always double‑check AI suggestions

AI Suggest is a starting point, not the final word. Allergens are a legal and safety matter — always confirm with whoever made the recipe before saving.

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 tile immediately takes on the 86 treatment so your team can see at a glance what’s out:

  • The colour block dims to greyscale with a red prohibit icon overlaid — exactly the same visual the iPad shows on its order‑taking grid
  • The name gets a strikethrough and the tile’s meta line shows “Out of stock” in red
  • A small red 86 badge appears next to the name
  • The card gets a soft red ring so it stands out in a long category
  • An inline Restore button appears on the right (with an undo icon) — tap it to bring the item back instantly without opening any menus

If you prefer, you can still use the menu: it swaps the 86 Item action to Un‑86 Item whenever the item is out.

How the 86 syncs to the iPad

Marking an item 86 on the Dashboard writes the status to Ditto and Postgres. Any connected iPad picks it up over the peer‑to‑peer mesh in seconds and shows the same greyscale + prohibit overlay on its order‑taking grid. Un‑86’ing clears the state the same way.

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.

ℹ️ Shared menus are read‑only

When you’re viewing a shared menu, the + Add Item, + Add Category, drag handles, and edit/delete options are all hidden. To change anything, either edit it from the location that owns the menu, or Delink → Duplicate to start your own copy.

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.
💡 Use this for the first 80% — then tidy up

Even when AI Upload misses a few items or muddles a price, it’ll still save hours over typing from scratch. Use it to get the bulk of your menu in, then go through and clean up the details — add photos, set prep stations, fine‑tune allergens.

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

Zavo Co‑Pilot

The Zavo Co‑Pilot is an AI assistant with full access to every menu, category, item, modifier and version at your location. Describe what you want changed in plain English — prices, names, descriptions, colours, whole menus — and the co‑pilot edits the menu live while you watch.

Open it from the blue Copilot button in the Menu Builder header. The panel slides in on the right; you can minimise it to a small pill in the bottom‑right corner while you do other work, or close it entirely.

What it can do

The co‑pilot exposes a fixed set of tools that map to real Dashboard actions. It cannot do anything that isn’t on this list:

AreaCapabilities
MenusList, read, create, update (name/description/status/publishAt), delete, publish, schedule, duplicate, copy menus from one location to another, link or unlink a menu from a location
CategoriesList, create, update (name/description/icon/default prep station), delete
ItemsList, search, create, update, delete, move between categories, bulk update across many items at once (set, multiply or add to prices; toggle visibility; recolour), set the attached modifier groups
Modifier groupsList, create, update, delete, bulk delete
VersioningList checkpoints, preview a checkpoint, restore a checkpoint, list audit events, create a manual checkpoint before a risky change

Everything it does is scoped to the current location. It cannot touch other locations on your account unless you explicitly ask it to “copy the lunch menu to Soho” — which it does with a dedicated tool.

What it asks before acting

The co‑pilot is built to be confident, not chatty:

  • Replies are capped at two sentences
  • No pleasantries, no “I’ll help you with that”, no summaries of what you just asked
  • After running tools, it reports one line: “Updated 12 items”, “Published Lunch
  • On failure it says exactly what broke

It never asks for confirmation inside a task that’s clearly in‑scope (“raise all pizza prices 10%”). It will refuse — politely, in one sentence — requests that are off‑topic or outside the menu.

House rules baked into the co‑pilot

A few constraints live in the system prompt so you don’t have to remember them every time:

  • Title Case names. Every menu, category, item, modifier group and modifier it creates or renames is Title Cased — “Margherita Pizza”, “Gluten‑Free Bread” — even when you type in lowercase.
  • Palette‑locked colours. Colours are picked from the 41 POS palette values (see POS Display Colour); the co‑pilot can’t invent new hex codes.
  • Read before write. Before mutating anything by id, it lists the relevant entities to make sure it’s targeting the right ones.
  • Bulk over loops. For changes that touch 3+ items, it uses the bulk_update_items tool in one shot instead of editing one item at a time.
  • Checkpoint first. For restructuring work (duplicating menus, reshuffling categories) it drops a named checkpoint before the change so you can revert in one click.

Watching the co‑pilot work

When the co‑pilot runs a task, the chat shows a grouped activity card like “Used 3 tools” with a chevron to expand — exactly how modern AI chat products show tool use. Expand it and you’ll see each step as its own card:

  • Created item — a mini tile showing the new item’s colour, name and price
  • Updated <item> — a per‑field diff (£9.50 struck through → £10.45), with a colour swatch when the colour was changed
  • Deleted item — the deleted tile dimmed to show what was removed
  • Bulk updated N items — the count plus small chips describing what changed (“Price × 1.1”, “Visibility → hidden”)
  • Created / updated / deleted category — a category pill with the name and icon
  • Created / updated menu — a menu card with the name and status

While a stretch of tool calls is still running, the group shows a spinner and the name of the step currently in flight. When everything finishes it collapses to a quiet “Used N tools” line so the chat stays readable. Errors auto‑expand in red so they can’t be missed; long expanded groups get a Collapse button at the bottom so you don’t have to scroll back to the header.

Every successful mutation also shows a toast in the corner of the Dashboard so you know something changed even if the panel is minimised.

Chat sessions and history

Each conversation is a session tied to your user, the location, and (optionally) the organization context you’re switched into.

  • The panel caches your active session per location, so closing the panel and coming back later picks up where you left off.
  • The Chats dropdown in the top‑right of the panel lists your recent sessions — each row shows its title (auto‑generated from your first prompt), the time it started, and the message count. Tap one to load that chat.
  • New starts a fresh session. The previous session is marked as ended on the server so it falls into the history list.
  • The co‑pilot persists every turn server‑side, including the step‑by‑step tool trail, so you can refresh the page and see the full history rendered exactly as it streamed.

Things it won’t do

  • Off‑topic requests. “Write me a marketing email”, “summarise last weekend’s takings” — declined in one sentence, redirecting you back to menu work.
  • Anything outside the current location (unless you explicitly say “copy X to location Y”).
  • Anything that needs Dashboard permissions you don’t have. The co‑pilot runs under your user — it can’t elevate its own access.

Example prompts

ℹ️ Try these to get started
  • “Create a new menu called Brunch with 3 categories: Eggs, Pastries, Coffee”
  • “Raise all pizza prices by 10%”
  • “Add a Gluten‑Free modifier group to every sandwich”
  • “Publish the Winter menu”
  • “Duplicate the Dinner menu for our Soho location”
  • “Make every cocktail a deep purple”
  • “Create a checkpoint, then rename every starter to start with ‘Small’”

When the empty state shows example chips, clicking one drops it straight into the input box — you can edit before sending.


Every change anyone makes to your menus — whether a human in the Dashboard, a waiter on the iPad, or the co‑pilot — is autosaved into a version history. The Menu history button in the Menu Builder header opens a drawer that lists every edit, oldest grouped by day, with two actions per change:

  • Preview — a peek at what the menu looked like just before that edit, without writing anything.
  • Revert — restores the menu to exactly the state before that change. A confirmation dialog spells out what’s about to happen; the current state is autosaved first, so every revert is itself undo‑able.

What you see per edit

Each entry is a single row showing:

  • An avatar circle — a Zavo logo for the co‑pilot, or a person icon for a human teammate
  • The actor’s name (e.g. Alex Carter), followed by a plain‑English summary — “added a category Starters”, “edited item Margherita Pizza”, “removed 3 items — Tiramisu, Affogato +1”, “reverted to a previous version”
  • The time (just now, 12 minutes ago, 2h ago, or an absolute time)
  • A “via Copilot” pill in blue if the change came from the co‑pilot
  • A N changes link to expand clusters — when a single action touched many items, they’re folded into one row and the expand reveals each item’s change line by line

Edits that happened close together, by the same actor, against the same entity type, are clustered into one row so a bulk update isn’t 80 lines in your timeline.

Filter by menu

A dropdown at the top lets you filter the timeline to a single menu. Leave it on All menus to see everything. When a menu is selected, edits against categories and items are resolved back to their parent menu; entities that no longer exist (archived, deleted) still appear so recent edits aren’t hidden.

Reverting to any earlier version

The drawer stays open after each revert so you can iterate. If a revert didn’t take you far enough back — or took you too far — click Revert on any older edit, or tap Undo on the revert itself to step forward again. There’s no limit to how many reverts you can chain; every restore is itself autosaved.

ℹ️ Reverts autosave the current state first

Before writing the restored snapshot, the server autosaves whatever the menu looked like a second ago. That means any revert is reversible — no change in Zavo is ever truly destructive.


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:

ColumnWhat it shows
NameThe group’s name (e.g. Steak Doneness)
OptionsHow many choices are inside (e.g. 4 options)
Selection RuleA short summary, e.g. Required, single choice or Optional, unlimited
Used ByUp to three badges of items that use the group, with +N more when there are extras. Shows Not in use in grey if no items use it yet
ActionsThe button — Edit or Delete (red)

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.

Name the group

  • Group Name (required) — what’s shown to the server on the iPad (e.g. Steak Doneness)
  • Kitchen Label (optional) — a shorter name for the group, shown on the kitchen ticket and KDS. Leave blank to use the group name.

Decide if it's required

Flick the Required toggle on if every guest ordering this item must pick at least one option. Leave it off for nice‑to‑haves like extra cheese.

Choose how many options can be picked

The Selection Type dropdown:

  • Single choice — exactly one (e.g. doneness)
  • Unlimited — any number, including all of them (e.g. pizza toppings)
  • Custom min/max — set your own bounds (e.g. “pick 2 to 4 sides”). Two number inputs appear for Min selections and Max selections

Add the options

Tap + Add Option to add a new row. For each option, enter:

  • The option name (e.g. Medium rare)
  • An optional kitchen label (a shorter name for the ticket)
  • A price with a £ prefix — set this to £0 for options included in the base price, or to a positive number to charge extra (e.g. £2 for adding bacon)

Use the trash icon to remove an option you don’t want.

Tap “Create Group”

The group joins the library and is now available to attach to any item.

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.

ℹ️ Same items, different layout

The POS Editor doesn’t change what’s in your menu — only how it’s arranged on the iPad. Adding a new item is still done in the Menu Builder; the POS Editor just lets you decide where its button lands.


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.

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 the inline 86 on the tile (or 86 Item). Tap Restore to bring it 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 GroupAdd 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
  • Ask the co‑pilot to do it for youCopilot (blue button) → describe the change → watch it edit live
  • Undo any change (by anyone, including the co‑pilot) → Menu history → find the edit → Revert

Next steps

  • Zavo Co‑Pilot — let AI handle bulk menu edits for you
  • Menu history — preview and revert any change
  • 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