How to make a QR code menu for a restaurant or café

What you need before you start

Gather these first and the whole job takes an afternoon:

• Your current menu, printed or typed, with every price checked.
• Your sections in the order you want them: starters, mains, drinks, desserts.
• Photos of your five to ten best-selling dishes, taken in daylight. You don't need a photo of everything.
• Which dishes are veg, non-veg or contain egg, and the common allergens in each (nuts, milk, gluten, soy).
• Your Wi-Fi name and password, if you share it with customers.

Step by step: from paper menu to printed QR code

Here is the order that works, using Tapmore as the example; any good menu tool follows the same steps.

1. Put the menu in. Type each item with its price under its section, or photograph your printed menu and let the import read it for you.
2. Check every line. Read the prices against your bill book, because a wrong price on a menu is a wrong price at the table.
3. Add marks and details: veg or non-veg, allergens, a short description for anything unfamiliar, and a photo for the dishes you most want to sell.
4. Choose a look that suits your place, a photo grid for a café or a plain list for a long restaurant menu.
5. Open the page on your own phone, on mobile data rather than Wi-Fi, and scroll through it as a customer would.
6. Print the QR codes: a small card or sticker for each table, one at the counter and one in the window.
7. Test each printed code with two different phones before you put it out.

Where should the QR codes go?

Wherever a customer is sitting or waiting with nothing to do. One code on every table, a larger one at the counter and the billing desk, and one in the window so people walking past can see your prices before they come in. Takeaway bags and bills are good places too, because the code then reaches people at home.

Print each code at least 3 cm across, on matt paper so lights don't glare off it, and keep a short line next to it such as “Scan for the menu”. A code on its own is easy to ignore.

Static or dynamic QR code?

A static QR code holds a fixed address. If that address is a PDF and you later upload a new file somewhere else, the old printed code still opens the old menu. A dynamic code opens a page you control, so you change the menu and every printed code shows the change at once.

For a menu, always use a code that opens a page you can edit. Reprinting table cards every time the price of milk goes up costs more than the menu tool.

Mistakes that make customers ask for the paper menu

Most complaints about QR menus come from a handful of avoidable problems:

• A PDF of the printed menu, which needs zooming and pinching on a small screen.
• Huge photos that take ages to load on mobile data in a basement or a busy market.
• Prices that are out of date, so the bill doesn't match the menu.
• Dishes that have run out but still show as available.
• No paper fallback at all. Keep two or three printed menus for older customers and for phones with a flat battery.

What else can the same QR code do?

Customers are already looking at your page, so it can do more than show the menu. On Tapmore the same code also opens a digital stamp card for regulars, the Wi-Fi password with a copy button, a private feedback box and an invitation to review you on Google. It costs ₹400 a month or ₹3,999 a year, about ₹11 a day on the yearly plan, after a 7-day free trial.