SektorCepte · 2026-10-26
A QR code on the table should open the menu
The code on the table should open the menu without an app install. Prices and sold-out dishes change on the page, not on every printed card.
A person who sits down looks at the phone before they look for a waiter. The code on the table is the menu for that look. If the code opens a poster, an old post, or an app store, the person will not scan it again. The code should open the menu of that table. It should not ask for an app. When a price changes or a dish runs out, you do not have to collect every printed card. The line on the page changes. The code on the table stays.
1. The code on the table is the menu, not a poster
The word menu should sit beside the code. Do not park another campaign's address in the same square. When the person scans, the first screen should show the name of the place and the dishes. A login wall, a membership, or a sentence that says to install an app makes a hungry person wait. The phone camera is enough. If the light is weak, leave the area around the code empty and high in contrast. A dirty, scratched, or peeling code does not read. Once each shift, someone should test one table with their own phone. A code that does not read means a table without a menu.
2. The page that opens should carry the name of the place
The menu should not look like a chain template with no local name. The name on the sign belongs in the heading. The district or the street separates two branches that could be confused. The sections should follow the counter: soup, main, drink. The thing a person is hunting should not disappear three swipes down. The photo should look like the plate that is in the kitchen today. Another place's plate may create appetite and still break trust. Short notes such as heat or an allergen replace the sentence the waiter repeats at every table. Write the note if it is real. If it is not, leave it out.
3. Prices and sold-out dishes change on the page
A printed card is right at the start of the week and old by Wednesday evening. If a dish is finished, saying so on the page is shorter than walking to the table to apologise. If the price changed, the figure on the page and the figure at the till must be the same. Two figures start an argument. You do not have to reprint the code. The same code opens the updated page. Kitchen and till should know this on the same day. Otherwise the waiter says the old price and the page shows the new one. The customer is left between them.
4. The same code on every table, and a clear name
Ten codes for ten tables create confusion. One code and one menu are enough. If the garden and the room have different menus, two codes are fair, but the heading each code opens should say which is which. Garden and room should not blur. The place the code is stuck should not vanish under a shaker or on a folding edge. The middle of the table, or beside the napkin holder, is where the hand naturally goes. When you add a new table, put the same code on it. Do not throw the old code away, because a regular may have photographed it.
5. Keep the menu on the page
The place the menu lives should be editable from a phone between services. MenuLab is there for that job: the dish name, the price, and the sold-out line update on the same page, and the code on the table does not change. At the end of the day, close the dishes that ran out, and open them again in the morning. Do not leave a weekly dish on the list every day by forgetfulness. The list a customer sees after the scan should be the list the kitchen can send out at that hour. That is enough. Designing a poster does not replace keeping the menu current.