Step 2: Create a Menu
Once you've created a location for your online ordering site, the next step would be to add a menu to the location.
What are Menus?
Menus are usually created according to different menus you might offer during a single day. Examples of menus are breakfast, brunch, lunch, linner and dinner. Linner is a thing, right?
Many restaurants simply have a single Menu and we suggest using a name such as "To Go" Menu or "Takeout & Delivery" Menu as the Display Name.
For restaurants with multiple menus available for specific times, then it is best to create a separate menu. Your breakfast menu might go from 7am to 11am. Then your lunch menu might go from 11am to 4pm. And dinner from 4pm to 10pm. Each of these menus can have different categories and items associated with them. Of course, if you only have one menu all day, then you only need to create one menu and you're done.
Alternatively, you can create separate menus for things like catering or special events. Our support team will be happy to help you with this type of menu setup, so feel free to reach out!
In your online ordering console, you can create a menu by selecting "Restaurant Manager" from the main menu and then selecting "Menus" under the "MENU SETTINGS" heading.
Then click the "+ Add New Menu" button.
Below is how it looks after you have created menus:
Menu Fields and Options
Let's walk through the details you'll need to provide for each menu.
Display Name
Select a name that will appear on the "Menu" page of your online ordering site, such as "Lunch" or "Online". If you only have one menu, you can enter something generic like "All Day" or "Online".
This is how the menu display name will appear to your customers:
(Standard Design Template)
(New Design Template)
URL
This is what will appear as a part of your online ordering site's website address. For example:
order.onlineorderingurl.com/classic-pizza/order/lunch
NOTE: You can have duplicate display names for a menu. For example, if you have multiple locations, and the lunch menu items are different at each location, you could create a different menu with the display name "Lunch" for each location. However, the URL tag must be unique. For example, you could add the location to the URL tag, like this:
order.onlineorderingurl.com/classic-pizza/order/manhattan/lunch-manhattan
order.onlineorderingurl.com/classic-pizza/order/brooklyn/lunch-brooklyn
Description
This description will appear to the customer once they have selected this menu. This is an optional field that can be used to explain details about a menu, if necessary.
Private Tag
This is an optional field that would create a tag that is only visible to you in your Online Ordering Console to differentiate between similarly named menus.
For example, if you have a different "Dinner" menu for different locations, you could add the location to this field.
Availability
Now you're able to define whether and when the menu will be visible to customers.
You can select if the menu is always visible, or whether it will be hidden from the online ordering site (but can still be accessed if a customer knows the URL of the menu). This is a manual on/off selection, according to whether you check or uncheck the box.
Note: If your menu is always available while you are open, then you should check "Always available" and use the Basic Availability type below. The menu will then use your global hours, which is what you will want in this scenario.
You're also able to define whether the menu should only appear after a certain date, or until a certain date. This can be used for special menus that are only available for a limited time. Using this option will actually "hide" the menu until the start date and then hide it again after the end date.
This feature is only for special menus, it isn't needed for regular menus that should always be available, therefore you will want to leave the boxes completely blank for regular menus.
Finally, you can choose to display the time frame that a menu is available, either by defining the Starts at and Ends at times for every day, or you can get more granular, and define the specific Starts at and Ends at times for each day of the week. For example: If you have a "Breakfast" Menu set to start at 7am and end at 11am, and a customer tries to order from that menu at 12 pm, the system will provide an error message at checkout with the Breakfast Menu available times.
(Example of Settings for an Always Available Menu - No need to set specific times so the system will know to use your global hours)
(Below example would be for a "Breakfast" Menu that is only available from 7am - 11am. This setting will automatically monitor the times your customer can order from this menu)
Note: We also have an Advanced Availability option for menus that are only available on certain days and certain times of days. For example: You might offer Lunch Specials on Monday to Friday from 11am - 2pm, so you could offer advanced options as seen below:
Currently shown at
Each of the Restaurant Locations you've created will appear here as options for where your menu can appear. Select the appropriate location(s).
Note that you'll need to select at least one location here, otherwise your menu won't show up.
Delivery Fee Adjustment
This optional field allows you to enter a surcharge to your standard delivery fee if the customer orders from this menu. This can be a dollar or percentage amount. This is only used if you need to add an additional amount to your current global delivery fee setting.
Make sure to click the "Create Menu" button, and you've created your first menu!
You can repeat this process to add another menu. And another. And another. Or stop at one. Your choice. But if you do have multiple menus, you can rearrange the order of how they'll appear to your customers by clicking the Display Name and dragging the entire line above or below, depending on how you would like your account set.
That's it! Next, you can add categories to your menu.