COVID-19 changed the bar and restaurant industry forever, shifting business away from a traditional dine-in model towards the new normal of contactless dining. While bars haven’t shifted as far into the digital realm as full-service and quick-service restaurants have — customers will always turn to bars as a place to gather and be around their friends — your online presence still matters.
Where does your bar’s digital presence start? With your online menu. Your online menu serves as the launching point for the rest of your digital experience, just as your physical menu is the jump off point for your customers’ in-person experience at your bar.
A great online menu incorporates all the new tools that you and your customers adopted over the past year — tools like QR codes, online ordering, and cashless payments — and put them in one place for the easiest contactless dining experience possible.
With so much at stake, you want to put some real thought and planning into creating your online menu. Before you start, check out our best practices for all the things you should do, and perhaps more importantly, all the things you shouldn’t.
DON’T: Upload a PDF
Gone are the days when your bar can get away with uploading a PDF for your online menu. Customers expect your digital menu to be optimized to the dimensions and hardware of mobile phones, because that is primarily how they will be accessing them. Static PDF uploads can work on larger desktop monitors, but they present a horrible experience on tiny phone screens.
Customers have to click and zoom to read anything. Separate bar menus, cocktail menus, beer menus, etc. require endless scrolling or customers exiting out and clicking on a whole separate link. You also can’t have an interactive menu or one integrated with your POS system.
DO: Tailor your menu for mobile usage
Instead of simply uploading a PDF, you want to make sure you have a mobile-optimized menu. The dining experience has shifted from the table to the tablet, now customers expect your menu to be readily accessible on their phone, simple to navigate, and easy to order from. Rather than an multi-page printed menu they can open up and explore, you need to craft your menu design to work best in the palm of your customer’s hand.
DO: Allow for Direct Orders
Third-party delivery apps like Grubhub and DoorDash made it easy for restaurants to make overnight pivots to takeout and off-premise sales. In the long run, though, they pose a serious threat your bar’s bottom line by taking a cut of each sale. If you serve to-go food or cocktails (now legal in certain states!), make sure you give customers an option to order directly from you. Most modern POS systems will hook up to your online menu so you can handle orders directly through them. If you don’t have a POS system, consider including your phone number or a call-to-order button on the
DO: Brand your menu
Like a printed menu, your online menu is representation of your brand and identity. It should incorporate all your bar’s most important branding elements like colors, logos and backgrounds to ensure your online menu represents your food, style and aesthetic. If you run a tiki bar or an old Irish pub, that style should be present on your menu.
Menu template services make it easy to brand your customize your design and create an online menu that’s unique to you.
DON’T: Over-design your menu
Simple branding elements are great, but don’t overdo it. The focus should always be on usability and clarity, so if you’re amazing design choices distract from that, you are better off ditching them.
DO: Connect your menu to a dynamic QR code
QR codes make it a breeze for customers to pull up your online menu on their phones. Rather than waste time typing in a URL or searching for you on Google, they can simply point and scan. The QR code is a great tool for taking your online menu and putting it on your customer’s phone screen. Make sure you use dynamic QR codes, though, because they can be updated. That way you can swap designs, change links, and update menus without having to print all new QR codes.
DO: Optimize your URL
Custom URLs are very important when it comes to standing out on Google and making it easy for your customers to find you. If you host your bar’s online menu through a third party, make sure they offer customer URLs so you can include your bar’s name in the link address. Google places extra weight on keywords you feature in the URL, so if you add your bar’s name and the term menu, you have a better chance of showing up if someone Googles your menu. Keywords in the URL help Google know what it’s looking at it at a glance.
DON’T: Forget to update your menu
Few things are more confusing and off-putting for a customer than an online menu that doesn’t match the normal menu. This is especially important for bars where beer selection, cocktails, drink specials, etc can change by the day. A main benefit of online menu is the ease of updating, but you have to make sure you do it. Slouching on your updates can make your bar seem unprofessional and lead to a confusing customer experience.
DO: Create categories for easier navigation
Always keep your customer experience at the forefront of your online menu. Don’t force them to scroll through all your sections to find a specific type of dish. If you have a long menu, break it up into multiple pages that customers can tab through from the top of your menu.
DO: Break out different menus into new tabs
If you offer multiple menus — say for cocktails, specialty drinks, seasonal specials, small plates, etc. — break them out into their tabs within your online menu. This will make it easier to replicate the sensation of thumbing through separate menus. If you include all your menus in one long extended online menu, you run the risk of customers missing out on your specialty items altogether because they were unaware they had to keep scrolling. That’s why it’s best to put them in tabs, front and center, at the top of your bar’s online menu.
Make sure your separate menus are still accessible from your main menu, though. You don’t want customers having to navigate all around your website trying to find your weekly drinks specials menu. They should be able to tab to it from your primary online menu.
DO: Include pictures
A nice picture can be the difference between selling a customer on your signature cocktail and not. If you have some stellar photographs of your best drinks, then certainly include them on the online menu. They can help to upsell Vivid imagery makes your menu more visually appealing and pleasant to navigate, sells your dishes, and can give you a big SEO boost if Google picks them up.
DON’T: Include massive picture files
They will slow down your page and mess up your customer browsing experience. Check your dimensions before you upload any billboard-sized photos of your food. If you need help making your pictures work, try out a free image compressor to
Mark Plumlee works as the Sr. Editor for MustHaveMenus, a DIY design and marketing service for restaurants with the largest collection of restaurant templates in the world. He covers marketing and design trends within the bar and restaurant industry. His writing has been published in Food Safety News, Full Service Restaurant, Restaurant Technology Guys, Cheers Online, Social Hospitality, Modern Restaurant Management, Quick Service Restaurant, Hospitality Tech, Bar Business Magazine, PMQ, That Oregon Life, The San Francisco Examiner, and Blazersedge.
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