QR codes for restaurant menus

A menu code should take a hungry customer to something readable in one tap. Most of them do not, and the reasons are always the same handful of mistakes.

How to make a menu QR code

1. Put the menu online at an address that will not change. A page on your own website is far better than a PDF, but a PDF is better than nothing.
2. Paste that link into the Website tab.
3. Style it if you want — colours can match your branding, as long as the pattern stays darker than the background.
4. Generate, print at 4–5cm, and test it on a table, in your actual lighting.

Link to a web page, not a PDF

This is the single biggest difference between a menu code people use and one they give up on. A PDF opens in a separate viewer, loads slowly on a weak signal, and arrives zoomed out so far the text is unreadable — the customer then pinches and drags around a page designed for A4. A plain mobile-friendly web page loads faster, reflows to the screen, and lets you change a price without regenerating and reprinting every code in the building.

If you only have a PDF today, it will still work. Just put it somewhere with a stable address so the code keeps pointing at it.

Getting the size and placement right

Keep an eye on the destination

These are static codes: the address is written into the pattern itself, so it never expires and there is no subscription that could switch it off. The trade-off is that changing where it points means reprinting.

The way around that is to point the code at a URL you control — your own /menu page, for example — and change what lives at that address whenever the menu changes. The printed codes stay valid forever and you never touch them again.

Give people a way out

Some customers will not scan, and some cannot: an older phone, a flat battery, or simply no desire to hold a menu at arm's length. Keeping a handful of printed menus behind the bar costs almost nothing and avoids a table having a bad time before they have ordered.