How to digitise your restaurant menu (without losing your mind)
Note: this post is sample content to shape the blog. Replace it with the real article when the time comes.
If you’re still reprinting your menu every time a price changes, this article is for you. Digitising your menu isn’t about hanging a PDF behind a QR code — it’s about your customers seeing, from their phone and without any effort, what’s actually coming out of your kitchen today. And, above all, about every customer being able to tell what they can eat.
The most common mistake: the scanned PDF
A photographed PDF looks terrible on a phone: you have to pinch-zoom, you can’t search it, and whenever something changes you’re back to printing and scanning. Technically it’s “digital”; in practice, it’s the same old paper with an extra step. And for someone who is blind or has low vision, a scanned PDF is simply a wall: their screen reader can’t read a photo.
What a real digital menu should offer
- Readable on a phone, no zooming: every dish with its price and description.
- Clear allergens, covering the 14 that must be declared in the EU.
- Filters that actually help: someone with coeliac disease, a pregnant customer or anyone with an allergy should be able to filter the menu and see only what they can eat — without interrogating the waiter dish by dish.
- Accessible to everyone: a menu a screen reader can read out loud, with scalable text and good contrast, for blind and low-vision customers.
- Updatable on the spot: if the octopus runs out, it disappears from the menu right away.
- A stable QR code: the same code on the table even if the menu changes every day.
The menu as a trust-building tool
Think about the last time someone in your dining room asked “does this contain gluten?”. That question is fear: of getting it wrong, of feeling unwell, of ruining the meal. A menu that answers by itself — with allergen filters, options safe for coeliacs or pregnant customers, and an accessible reading experience — turns that fear into peace of mind. And a customer at ease comes back.
How mimetre does it
With mimetre you take a photo of your paper menu, the daily specials board or even a handwritten note, and AI extracts dishes, prices, descriptions and allergens. You review, adjust and publish: your QR code now shows a digital menu your customers can filter to their needs — coeliac disease, pregnancy, allergies — designed to work with screen readers from day one. And when something changes, you edit it from your phone in seconds.
Want to try it? Join the alpha for free.