Are you running a restaurant that still prints out its menus? Trust us, it’s time to make a change. So many modern restaurants, diners, and coffee shops are shifting to online menus. Since everyone has a smartphone today, it’s super easy to look up the menu beforehand or at the restaurant, and decide on an order.

If you’re unsure about dumping your printed menus and creating an online alternative, here are some reasons why it’s definitely a good and sustainable idea to make this change, and how you can create a great online restaurant menu in minutes. 

1. You’ll save up on printing costs

Printing dozens of menus can be incredibly expensive, especially if you’re looking for quality paper that will reflect your brand. Then there are other miscellaneous costs too, for instance, the cost of transporting the menus from the printing facility to the restaurant.

Apart from this, think about all the time that’s wasted between designing the menu and getting the final prints to your restaurant. 

Online menus jump over all of these unnecessary hoops and provide efficiency. There is also no chance of your staff or customers tearing or losing the menu. In this way, you save up so much money that you can instead put into your food or your restaurant decor. 

2. Online menus are environmentally friendly

With climate change and global warming on the rise, we need to do everything in our power to ensure sustainability. Part of these efforts includes using less paper. This is why people encourage reading e-books instead of physical books. 

You can play your part in saving the planet by cutting down on unnecessary paper usage. Instead of printing your menu, have it up on your website or social media so that it’s easily accessible to your customers, and it’s good for the environment.

3. Making quick edits is easier with an online menu

Imagine a scenario in which you need to change the price of your best-selling soup. And you need to do it quickly. If you have printed menus, you will have to cross out the current price with a marker and add the new one, which will undoubtedly look bad. Or you’ll have to order a whole new bunch of printed menus, which will cost time and money. 

If you have an online menu, all you would have to do is make one quick edit on your design and put it back up on your site. 

4. You’ll increase customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is key for any good restaurant. Having an online menu gives people the opportunity to look up the food options and prices before coming to the restaurant. This means they’ll be more informed and more confident about what they want when they visit you. 

A lot of people order something hastily in a restaurant and then regret it as soon as it comes out. In an online menu, you can add pictures and more details since space isn’t a problem. So people can make more educated decisions about the food they want. This will leave your customers feeling more satisfied after they’ve had their meal. 

5. Online menus are the safer option

In the age of COVID, online menus are ideal. People want to remain contactless as much as they can, and an online menu gives them that option. You can even advertise this as a plus for people who choose to be extra careful about COVID transmission. 

6. Online menus have more design options

When you’re designing a menu for print, you have to be careful about a lot of things. You don’t want to add long descriptions because you might use up more paper which will be costly. You can’t add pictures because then you would have to pay extra for colored printing. 

When designing an online menu, you’re free from these restraints. You can add as much color as you want. You can add enticing photos of all your food and drinks. Moreover, you can describe your meals in detail, giving people a better idea of what they’ll be having. 

If you’re not sure how to create an online menu, PosterMyWall’s incredible menu maker can help you get there in minutes. All you would have to do is pick a menu template you like, add your photos and text, play around with the different design tools, and viola! You have a digital menu ready to be posted. 

menu making

Final thoughts

These reasons are enough to convince anyone to make the shift to online menus. Trust us, there’s absolutely no downside. And if you use the right design tools, you won’t even have to pay a designer to make your menu. You can do it all in-house for practically no cost. So make your online menu today!