This article explains how to build your menu using the three-level structure of categories, sections and menu items.

How to create menu categories

1. Go to Your Menu > Menu Items.
2. Click Create New Category.
3. Enter the Category Name.
   1. If you are creating a visual menu (without ordering) it is best to only have one category and call it exactly "Main Menu".
   2. If you have a kitchen and bar menu with different opening hours, make two categories - one called Kitchen Menu and one called Bar Menu, for example.
4. Slug: main-menu or kitchen-menu or bar-menu, for example. The slug must be in lower case. The slug appears in the URL and can have no spaces or special characters other than a hyphen 👉 -
5. Category type: Click KITCHEN, unless you are only offering drinks, then you would select BAR.
6. Ordering Type: Select the type of ordering you are offering. For example, dine in, delivery and/or pick up. If you are creating a visual menu (without ordering) you can leave all three options selected. 
7. Background Image: Choose a photo such as your logo or photo of your food/drinks offering. Choose a jpeg file, landscape image. This will not show up if you only have one category, however, it is a required field so you must have a jpeg uploaded. The dimensions for the menu category images are 1164 width x 456 height and they should look perfect!
8. Leave Hide category while out of hours toggled off. This way customers are still able to browse your menu when you are closed.
9. Click Create.

How to create menu sections

Sections are the bold headings on me&u Menus e.g. entree, main, dessert, sides, drinks

For Example: 

1. Go to Your Menu > Menu Items.
2. Click into the category where you'd like to add a menu section. If your menu only has one category, it will be called Main Menu.
3. Click Create New Section.
   1. Name your section. For example, Entree.
   2. Slug: just use the name of the section, e.g. entrees. Do not put any spaces and use all lowercase letters. If it is two words then put a hyphen between the words e.g. share-plates.
   3. Section Subheading: you can leave this blank. If you want to provide more information than the section heading. For example, for an "Entree" section, you could write “Also great for tapas-style sharing”. 

      

   4. Click Create. 
4. Repeat for all your sections. You will be able to edit them later.

How to create menu items

1. Go to Your Menu > Menu Items.
2. Click into the category you want to add an item in - e.g. it will be called Main Menu if you only have one category.
3. Click Create new Menu Item at the bottom of the section where you'd like to add the item.
   1. Name: put the name of your menu item. For example, Nonna's Iconic Spaghetti Bolognese.
   2. Description: write a description of your menu item. Just copy what you have on your original menu.
   3. Display Price: put the price of the item e.g. if it was $10 type 10.
   4. Price in Cents: put an extra two zeros (00) to the price e.g. if it was $10 put 1000. This is very important because this is what the customer will be charged. Even if you just have visual menu still put the price in cents in. 
   5. Type: There are three types: Menu Item - which includes a photo, Menu Item without a photo, and Info: items that usually cant be ordered such as dietary tags, 10% public holiday surcharge. 
   6. Category: you can select from a multitude of options ranging from "Main" to "Alcoholic drink".
   7. POS ID: if you have a POS integration put this in, otherwise leave it blank. 
   8. Available for purchase: Leave this toggle on unless you want to make the item unavailable for purchase.
   9. Visible on menu: Leave this toggle on unless you want the item to be hidden from your menu.
   10. Is Popular: Toggle this on if you want the item to have the "Popular" tag.
   11. Nested Item: Leave this toggle off unless you want to nest the item. Nesting is used for items offered as upgrades. For example, if you want to offer a bottle of wine as a size upgrade to your glass of wine, you will nest the bottle of wine item. See also: How to add multiple sizes/upgrades
   12. Click Dietary Information.
       1. Dietary tags appear on your menu items, as you may have them on your physical menu.
          If the dietary tags that you want aren't already created you can type it in under dietary tags and then click create. 
          
          For example, you may use GF: Gluten-Free, GFO: Gluten Free-Option,  V: Vegetarian, VO: Vegetarian Option, VG: Vegan, VGO: Vegan Option. You can use whatever abbreviations you like. Keep them short though so they don't clash with the price of the item as they are very close.
          
          You can create an info menu item to let customers know what the dietary tags mean.  
       2. Filter Tags will filter menu items for your guest to make it easier to see what options are available to them. Vegan, vegetarian, gluten intolerance and 'without garlic and onion' are some of the options we have available to choose from. Menu items that are intended for vegan or gluten intolerant guests should be tagged appropriately.
   For example:

   

   This is how it appears on your menu:

   

4. Click Create.
5. Click back into the menu item you have just created and click on View item modifiers & upsells at the top to create modifiers and upsells. To learn how, go to Creating and managing upsells and Creating and managing modifiers.

Optional: Editing language translations

You can write more simplified versions of the item names and descriptions so that google translate can translate the words correctly into the five language options: Chinese, Spanish, Greek, French and Italian. 

For example, change hummus to chickpea dip, bao to bread bun, Samosa to filled pastry. 

Slang or Aussie language will not translate well so try and change them to their basic form.

Add a photo of your item

1. Find the menu item you'd like to add a photo for.
2. Click the plus button to upload a photo of your menu item 
3. The image should be square, closely cropped. You want it to be close enough that customers can see the photo without having to click on the menu item. Also, try to use Jpeg images.  
4. Repeat for all your menu items 

See also: How to add photos to your menu

Watch a video walk-through of how to create a menu item