QR menus for restaurants and bars, without the PDF
Why a QR code pointing at a PDF is worse than a paper menu, and what a menu built as a web page does instead.
Most QR menus are a QR code pointing at a PDF, and a PDF is the wrong format for a phone. It opens in a viewer rather than the browser, it arrives as a page sized for A4 that has to be pinched and dragged, and changing one price means re-exporting the whole document and re-uploading it.
The picture above is two menus from DIVERD QR Code Studio: a café and a rooftop bar, each on its own address, each a web page rather than a file.
What a menu as a page does that a PDF cannot
- It fits the phone it is read on. Sections fold open, prices sit against the right edge, and nothing needs zooming.
- It changes in a minute. Sold out of the trout? Untick it. The code on the table already points here, so nothing is reprinted and no code is replaced.
- It shows two currencies. Prices are set and charged in convertible marks, with an approximate euro conversion a guest can switch to. Useful in any town with tourists in it.
- It carries allergens and diet tags. Vegan, gluten free, and the rest, on the item rather than in a separate document nobody asks for.
- It has offers and events. A promotion that runs until Sunday, or a set on Friday night, in tabs beside the food — and they disappear on their own when the date passes.
The address is the point
Each menu gets a short public address of its own — qrcode.diverd.dev/m/your-venue/ — and that matters for a reason that is easy to miss: somebody will eventually type it in. The camera will not focus, the code will be scratched, the light will be wrong. A short address printed under the code is the fallback, and a menu whose URL is forty characters of random has no fallback at all.
What it looks like on a table
A code on a card, a table sticker, or the window. The studio's frames include labelled ones, and a labelled code is worth more than a bare one: "Scan for the menu" answers the question a guest has before they have asked it.
Print it big enough. A code that works on a phone screen at arm's length may not work on a card in candlelight, which is the light most restaurants actually have.
What it does not do
It is not a till, it does not take orders, and it does not process payments. It is the menu — the thing guests read before they decide — and it is built to do that one job on a phone.
If ordering or payments is what you are after, that is a different build, and worth a conversation rather than a subscription.
See the studio or book a walk-through and we will set a menu up on the call.