Making food menus cmsable and responsive for the digital age and contemporary restaurants

No, quite frankly, I would not like to download your PDF menu.

It’s the easy way out, but when you’re in the business of customer service, surely, making sure the whole experience is a delight is just as important as the final dish placed in front of a customer.

Waiting for a PDF to load on a mobile device, to only zoom in, and slowly scroll through the options doesn’t exactly build someone’s appetite (or confidence) - it’s frustrating, time consuming and begs the question - why, in a digital age, are consumers having to read documents on their devices that were only ever designed for print.

We asked ourselves this and then we did what we always try to do - create difference and matter to our clients and their customers.

Anything that keeps your customers happy and continues to see them coming through your door has to be a benefit, right?

Update anywhere, anytime, on any device

A CMSable (content manageable) menu can be updated anywhere, anytime, on any device with Craft CMS. Does your restaurant not have all the ingredients for a popular dish on the menu tonight? Or is there a dish you always served, but you’re choosing to take it off of the menu? Maybe you’re adding in a seasonal selection or you simply want to change some ingredients.

Usually you’d have to ask your designer or agency to re-work the PDF artwork and resend it to you - not anymore. All of this can be achieved online, on your website, by you - no need to ask for more design or development time at extra cost - it’s just a simple edit and you’re done.

No need for downloadable menu PDFs

It’s frustrating as a user to visit a restaurant's website and go from page to page and have to download a different PDF per menu. Lunch, main, drinks? Why can’t we simply view it online on a web page? Craft CMS allows us to build responsive web pages that are viewable and accessible no matter the device.

That also means that users aren’t being taken off-site or being directed to a new tab to view the menu. This breaks a users experience and forces them to awkwardly move back and forth between the menu and your website.

It also means that customers no longer need to waste their internet data downloading a PDF and can simply view the menu page as they go about their day with ease.

A simple and more inline user centric experience makes for happier customers and will promote table reservations when a customer isn’t frustrated after spending most of their time just trying to view a menu.

View the menu in action at Peggy's Skylight.

We’re huge advocates of Craft CMS - it’s powerful, flexible and it gives us the ability to create bespoke design that doesn’t look like every other website out there. That’s all great, for us, but when it comes to our clients and their content managers, it’s an absolute pleasure to work with.

Its backend is simple and intuitive and content managers can live preview any amends they make before clicking save - our own content managers swear by it (like sailors in fact).

Read all about why content managers love Craft CMS and why we waved goodbye to WordPress and embraced Craft CMS with open arms.

If you’re interested in a website redesign and build with Craft CMS to incorporate cmsable menus, get in touch and we’d be happy to discuss the possibilities with Craft.