Why you should switch to digital restaurant menu?

Statistical data gathered by NRN (Nation’s Restaurant News) shows that digital menu ordering and delivery have grown 300% faster than dine-in traffic since 2014. Quite frankly, it is hard to disagree with the numbers. 

The rush for technology and innovation fired up by many factors with pandemic being among the main ones — is undeniable.

What is a virtual menu?

Virtual or electronic menu definition is pretty simple, basically, your customers have digital food menus instead of paper ones and can place their order through the website contact-free.

Digital dining software is developing so rapidly that it becomes hard to keep track of all the gimmicks. Innovative businesses try to use as much ground-breaking tech as possible because it saves time, resources, and the customers love it! 

Positive results among multimillionaire brands, like Burger King, KFC, and Taco Bell, who successfully started and completed the integration process of digital menus is going viral through social media gaining public interest and drawing in more clients interested in e-menus.

In addition, digital order forms are more convenient for staff. They see all the information about the client and don’t waste time to clarify it. 

Pros and Cons in electronic menus for restaurants

Technological enhancement is not idly standing behind it is moving very fast and gets more and more devotees every day, so let’s take a closer look to perceive why people and organizations are drawn to switch restaurant menus to electronic ones:

The first criterion is price.

If you count how much does it cost to print menus using paper every year for all of your establishments you will get a tidy sum. Additionally, you would need to hire a designer for the layout to look noteworthy and professional. 

If you buy all-in-one software for your restaurant like ORTY, creating and setting up the e-menu is included in your monthly tariff, which can be very adaptive, depending on the number of placed orders.  

The second criterion is flexibility.

Probably the main flaw of the paper variant is the impossibility to add changes to it. To do that you need to spend a lot of time and resources. 

While the digital one is versatile and easily adaptive. The huge plus is being able to add changes to the prices, layout, or products in mere seconds.

The third criterion is safety.

Unfortunately, in our turbulent times, we have to be cautious about any physical contact. The electronic menu provides the required defense against viruses as people can use it touch-free by scanning a QR or barcode.

The Paper menu is not contactless, many people during the day are using it and holding it in their hands. And the thing is, you cannot pour sanitized all over it when someone has used it.

How to create a digital menu?

E-menus are easy to create and set up if you use such platforms as ORTY, where you get your own app and website out of the box. It would take about 10-15 minutes to make all the necessary adjustments and start selling the products!

For starters, you would need to add positions to the menu which you would like to offer to the clients. Set the prices, upload pictures, add modifiers so your clients would see the dishes you serve.  

Secondly, apply settings to the website where your menu is. Adjust financial block by adding various payment channels so the customers would have options to choose from.

When a customer will make an order, workers get it on their Quick Service POS and begin to complete it. 

Additionally, you might enforce your service by using a CRM system, adding delivery options, allowing your customers to choose curbside pickup, and other applicable software.

Boost your marketing campaign by generating a QR code menu and putting the code in public places. That way, a great number of people would scan it on their phones and see your up-to-date digital menu, where they can effortlessly put an order in a couple of minutes.