Digital menu for bars: a drinks list guests can read, and order from

A digital menu for a bar is your drinks list on the guest's phone: every pour size, every mixer and tonight's specials, updated the second a keg kicks. With Menuthere, guests scan a QR code on the table or the bar, read the menu without an app, and, if you switch it on, order rounds to their table. It's free to start, with 0% commission. Happy-hour items on a timer, table codes and geo-lock against outside orders are all on the Free plan.

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Phone, screen or tablet: which digital menu does a bar need?

"Digital menu" means three different things in a bar. Pick by the job.

Many bars use both a screen and a phone menu: the board for what's on tap, and the QR code for the full list and for ordering without waving at the bartender.

Two kinds of QR code in a bar

Don't serve at the bar rail? Switch that spot's code to View only, so guests can browse there but order only from a table. Put your Wi-Fi on the same card with the free table QR card maker and Wi-Fi QR code generator.

Build the drinks list

Here's how a cocktail bar with a kitchen sets up its menu. Every piece is on the Free plan.

Food and drink both arrive on one ticket for the table. The ticket and the bill print as separate jobs, so the ticket can go to the bar or kitchen printer and the bill to the till. An add-on costs the same on every size, so a mixer is +$1 on a single and on a double; price it at your average or list doubles as their own item.

Running margins? Check pour costs with the free drinks GP calculator.

Happy hour on a timer, and the law

Menuthere's coupons and sale prices can be limited to certain days, but not to a time of day. So happy hour works through timed items:

1. Add a Happy hour category at the top of your menu.
2. Add the happy-hour versions of your drinks, such as "HH Draft pint $5" and "HH House wine $7".
3. On each one, switch on Set Time: Monday to Friday, 4:00 to 6:00 PM.
4. Outside those hours the items leave the menu completely, so nobody orders a $5 pint at 9 PM.

Times follow your store's time zone. A window can run past midnight, such as a late-night menu from 10:00 PM to 1:00 AM.

Check your local rules before you advertise it. Alcohol pricing rules vary by state and city. In Massachusetts, for example, an on-premises licensee may not sell drinks below the price regularly charged during the same calendar week, which rules out a classic happy hour (204 CMR 4.03). Ask your state's alcohol regulator what applies to you.

Rounds, tabs and paying at the end

A table orders a round, then another, then food. Here's how that works:

• The first round arrives marked with the table's name and rings until someone accepts it.
• The next round from the same table and the same phone joins the open order, as long as the first order isn't finished or paid. You see "Edited by customer" and the new lines tagged "Added". Reprint the ticket and they show as (ADDED).
• A friend ordering on their own phone gets their own order. That's how separate tabs happen without a split-bill feature.
• Paying once at the end (Lite). Turn on "Ask payment after order complete" for dine-in. Rounds go in unpaid and read "Payment due". When you mark the order completed, the guest gets a Pay now button for 1 hour, by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay through your own Stripe account. After that, collect at the bar.
• Paying at the bar (Free). Guests pay you directly, and you mark each order paid as Cash or Card.

Your table list shows which tables have an open order and frees each table when its order is completed or canceled, or after 4 hours with no activity. See rounds by QR and paying once.

Busy nights and last call

• Match night. Orders ring on the partner app at the bar until accepted. Auto-accept with a delay of up to 2 minutes catches orders when nobody can tap.
• Rooftop or VIP pricing. A table code can add an amount to every item, such as +$2 on the rooftop. Guests see only the final price.
• Orders from outside. Geo-lock asks for the phone's location at checkout from a table code and only allows orders within 100 m, 200 m, 500 m or 1 km of your map pin. Pickup and delivery aren't checked. See stopping prank QR orders.
• Last call. Table orders follow your working hours. Set closing time to last call, or press the Open/Closed button and close until your next opening time. Guests can still read the menu.
• Tourists. On Lite, a language button translates your menu into 13 languages, including Spanish, Chinese and Japanese.

What it costs

A read-only menu has no order limit; the 50-a-month cap is on orders. On Free, after 50 orders your table codes open a browse-only menu until the 1st, or until you upgrade. Lite and Pro each start with a 7-day free trial; you add a card to start it, and nothing is charged until it ends.

Not a fit if

• You need ID checks. Menuthere doesn't verify age. Staff check ID when they serve, as they would at the bar.
• You run tabs on a card swipe. There's no card pre-authorization. Use pay-at-the-end or your existing terminal.
• You want tips at checkout. Menuthere doesn't collect tips at checkout.
• Tables split one bill. There's no split bill; separate phones make separate orders.
• You need a wall-screen tap list. Use signage software for the TV and Menuthere for the phone menu.
• Your POS must receive QR orders by itself. There's no ready-made link to US bar POS systems such as Toast, Square or Clover.

UK pub? See our pub ordering system, EPOS for pubs and the guide to starting a mobile bar. For QR ordering in bars and pubs in general, see QR menu for bars and pubs. Comparing menu tools? Read Menuthere vs MenuTiger.

Set up your bar's digital menu

1. Create your bar's store. Find your bar on Google to fill in the name, address and photos, or start by hand.
2. Add the drinks list. Import it from a photo or PDF, then set pours and bottles as sizes and mixers as a required group.
3. Add happy hour. Create a Happy hour category and give each item its days and times with Set Time.
4. Add your tables. Name them by area, such as "Booth 3" or "Patio 5", and add a rooftop price adjustment if you charge more there.
5. Print the codes. Download the table codes and the digital menu card, and scan each one before you put it out.
6. Pin the bar and switch on geo-lock. Set your map pin and choose an allowed distance.
7. Run a test round. Order from a table, order again from the same phone, and check that the second round joins the first.

A drinks menu guests can order from, 0% commission.

Create your free ordering pageBook a demo (opens in a new tab)