Choose one menu as the source, publish it as text on the website, make every other version a copy of it, and delete the old files. Diners trust a menu only when every version agrees.

The site

A forty-seat Italian restaurant on a neighbourhood shopping street. The website was built three years ago and is tidy enough: a photograph of the dining room, the hours, a booking button and a menu page.

The menu page lists the dishes as text, with prices. It was typed in when the site launched and has been updated once since.

Beneath it, a link says download our menu. That opens a PDF designed in the kitchen last fall, with a different set of pastas and higher prices on most of the mains.

The restaurant's Google listing has a menu link too. It goes to a copy of the menu on another site, made two years ago and different from both.

The inference a visitor makes

Somebody planning a birthday dinner opens the menu page, then the PDF to check something, and finds the gnocchi in one and not the other, and the veal at two prices.

They do not conclude that the PDF is newer. They have no way to know which is current, so they conclude that nobody at the restaurant looks after the website.

From there it is a short step to wondering what else is out of date: the hours, the booking system, perhaps the kitchen.

A diner choosing a place for an occasion usually picks the one where they know what they are getting. Uncertainty is enough to lose the table, without any single error being serious.

Where the three menus came from

The second keeps the problem alive. The PDF gets updated because it is the version the kitchen controls, and the menu page falls further behind with every change.

Two prices for the same dish

Prices that disagree do the most damage, in either direction.

A diner who saw the lower price and is charged the higher one feels misled at the table, whatever the explanation. That is the kind of moment that ends up in a review.

A diner who saw only the higher price may never book, when the lower one might have been current.

Either way the restaurant pays for a gap it never meant to create, and the visitor cannot tell it was an accident.

Dishes that no longer exist

Some people book for a particular dish. Arriving to find it gone, after the website promised it, starts the evening with a disappointment the server has to absorb.

The risk is sharper for anyone choosing by dietary need. A gluten-free or vegetarian dish listed online but dropped from the kitchen leaves that guest with little to order.

For those diners an out-of-date menu is not a small inaccuracy. It may be the reason they chose the restaurant.

The PDF on a phone

Most people check a menu on their phone, often on the way somewhere. A PDF suits that badly.

It opens in a separate viewer or downloads to a folder, the text is tiny until pinched and dragged, and a large file can be slow on a mobile connection.

Old PDFs also linger. Removing the link does not remove the file, and a file left on the server can stay in Google's results, so a search for the restaurant's menu can bring up a version from years ago.

The listing's version

More people see the Google listing than the website, and many never go further.

Its menu link was set to the copy on another site when the listing was first claimed, and nobody has changed it since. Meanwhile, customer photographs show the printed menu of two winters ago, prices and all.

Customers' photographs stay, but the owner can add a current photograph of the printed menu and set the listing's menu link to the restaurant's own page.

Who owns the menu online

In most restaurants the menu belongs to the kitchen and the website belongs to whoever built it, and nobody is responsible for the gap between them.

The chef changes dishes, the owner changes prices, and the person who could update the site hears about it weeks later, if at all.

The fix is a habit rather than technology: the menu online changes the same day as the printed one, by one named person, from one source.

A worked example

The owner chose the website's menu page as the single source and made one person responsible for it.

The page was rewritten as text with current prices and a line at the top saying when the menu last changed. The printable version is now produced from the same text, so the two cannot differ.

The old PDFs were deleted from the server and their addresses redirected to the menu page, so old links and old search results land somewhere current.

The listing's menu link now points to that page, a photograph of the current printed menu was added, and the Facebook section was updated to match.

When the spring menu arrives, the change is made once, on the website, and the other places are checked against it the same afternoon.

The counter-case within the site

A PDF is not always wrong. A catering menu or a wine list that changes rarely and is meant to be printed can reasonably be one, provided it is the only version.

A restaurant whose menu changes daily cannot keep a full menu online, and should not pretend to. A sample menu, clearly labelled as an example, with typical prices, is honest and useful.

Daily specials belong on the board and in what the server says, not on the permanent menu page.

Whatever the format, there should be one source, and every other version should be a copy of it.

What to change

  1. Collect every version of your menu online.
  2. Choose one source, usually the website's menu page.
  3. Publish it as text, not only a PDF.
  4. Delete old files and redirect their addresses.
  5. Point the listing's menu link at your page.
  6. Add a current photograph of the printed menu.
  7. Name one person who updates it first.

Step four is the one most often skipped. Removing a link feels like removing the file, but the old menu stays on the server and in search results until someone deletes it.

On a phone, the menu also has to be readable below whatever sits at the top of the screen, the problem covered in fixed headers that cover half the phone screen.

Frequently asked questions

Why do diners distrust a menu that disagrees?

They cannot tell which version is current, so they assume nobody maintains the site, and begin to wonder whether the hours and the booking system are out of date too.

Is a PDF menu a bad idea?

As the only version, usually. On a phone it opens in a viewer, needs pinching to read, and old files linger in search results after the link is removed.

Which version should be the source?

Usually the menu page on your website, published as text. Every other version, including the printable one and the listing's menu link, should be a copy of it.

What happens to old PDF menus?

They stay on the server, and can stay in Google's results, until someone deletes them. Delete them and redirect their addresses to the current menu page.

Can I fix the menu on my Google listing?

You can set the menu link to your own page and add a current photograph of the printed menu. Customers' photographs stay, so yours needs to be recent.

What about a menu that changes daily?

Publish a sample menu clearly labelled as an example, with typical prices, and keep daily specials off the permanent menu page.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Menu online not matching the printed one?

Send us your website address. We will find every version of your menu online and tell you which to keep.

Start a Conversation