Putting together the perfect restaurant menu can be both exciting and overwhelming. Because of the factors to consider, it may not always be a straightforward decision. One thing is certain though: whatever shape or size your menu is, you can build your menu easily with Lightspeed.

Empower your waitstaff to handle any type of order - even enter special requests and dietary requirements with just a couple of taps. You can prompt for questions so the waitstaff never forgets to confirm steak temperature, which sides, and other important details.

What's in this guide?

Add (or Import) your menu basics
Create your variants
Create your options & modifiers
Add an Open Food button
Arrange your products on the POS and test your menu

Optimise table service
Set up Guest Tracking
Set up Courses

Add (or Import) your menu basics

First things first, we'll need to add products. We know that there is no single “Restaurant Menu” (how boring would that be!), so we’ve built an example menu with some common dishes so that you can learn how easy it is to build your own menu.

We have linked our sample restaurant menu below (which you can upload to your Lightspeed) so that you can easily follow along.

• Tax Inclusive (IncTax) pricing is the standard for Australia, New Zealand, UK etc
  • Best Practise - Restaurant Import IncTax.csv
• Tax Exclusive (ExTax) pricing is the standard for the USA, so you'll want the below template
  • Best Practise - Restaurant Import ExTax .csv

The items included in this import are shown below:

Create your variants

Variants are a great way to assign attributes like flavours and portion sizes (or both!)

Note - After you've added your products, it's time to create your variants. If you have not yet read through our guide on creating variants, then I recommend giving that a read first.

In our menu, we serve our salads as both a side and the main serving.

1. Each variant will be created from the attributes you assign to it. Our attribute in this scenario is Serving Size

Note - Attributes do not appear on the POS

2. Save the attribute by selecting Save Template.

3. A dialogue box will show. Select Yes

4. Select Add a new Variant

5. Enter the variants under the corresponding attribute. The values you enter in the field for the price and for each attribute will make a new product. Simply select Add Variant to save.

6. If you use the above attributes then your salad should look like these below;

Create your options & modifiers

Option sets and modifiers are a great way to organise options or a series of options for a product or variant - so that staff can note them quickly or even be prompted by the system to ask.

1. If you have not yet read through our guide on creating options & modifiers, then I recommend giving that a read first. Then you can refer to the table below and see if you can recreate these option sets and modifiers.

Note - Option Sets & modifiers will group into alphabetical order by default, so to save time we name our option sets with a number showing the order we want to show these in.

2. Let's now create the three Option Sets on the table below, considering these notes:

• The first two (Steak Temp and Steak Sauce)  will be mandatory questions for a specific product: the Rib-Eye Steak. This is so that staff never forget to ask.
• The Dietary Requirements will be options for all products - but not prompted like the steak options. These will not prompt but will be accessible in a few taps when the staff needs them. 

2. Now we can assign the Option Sets we have just created to our Rib Eye Steak.

3. Since we want to ensure that each steak that gets ordered always has a Steak Temp and a Sauce selection, we can create rules to ensure of these option sets.

Create a minimum selection rule (minimum selection = 1) for 1 - Steak Sauce, and 2- Steak Temp.

4. Because we have set minimum selection for our option sets, this will set Auto-Prompt on POS to Yes for our Rib Eye Steak.

5. Next, assign Dietary Requirements to all products under Appetizers, Mains, Salads & Soups.

6. Toggle Auto-Prompt on POS to No for these products as these are not needed to be asked for every order.

Note - For the modifiers we use very frequently, we can simply add those as On-Screen Modifiers by adding them to the same category as the menu items to make them visible on the POS.

Add an Open Food button

A Variable Price Prompt is useful for selling products that are constantly changing their price as this means staff are prompted to enter a price the moment they select the product on the POS.

All we need to do is change the Open Food product you uploaded earlier to have a Variable Price, and set the price range.

Variable Price Prompt is also really good to use for Market Day pricing or a Roast of the Day price.

Note - the elegant & power-saving dark mode is now available on  POS. Check out this guide on how you can activate it.

Arrange your products on the POS and test your menu

Next, go to the POS and arrange the products to fit your workflow.

Make your products easy to find for staff members or customers. Lightspeed offers a simple drag and drop facility to arrange products and categories on your Point of Sale. You can also add colours to your product tiles.

You should now have a beautiful and functional restaurant menu.

The next sections will help you finetune the workflow of your menu.

Set up courses

Lightspeed's Courses Add-on streamlines your service flow, course timing, and production printing for your kitchen - perfect for venues of all sizes. Follow this guide on how to set up courses,

Automatically assign products to courses, and waitstaff can send course calls, docket updates, and additional instructions to the kitchen with just a tap.

Set up three courses and their assigned categories:

Optimise table service

With Lightspeed’s Tables Add-on, staff can see at a glance which tables have open, who is waiting to order, who needs a check-in, and who is about to leave.   Follow our guide on Setting up Lightspeed Tables to streamline your table service in minutes.

Set up Guest Tracking 

Tracking covers (guest counts, or customer numbers) can help you identify not only how many guests are visiting your store, but more importantly see what their average spend is!

If you’re using guest Tracking with Tables, then your staff will be prompted to enter the number of guests every time they open a table. Check this guide out on how to enable Guest Tracking.

Now that you have your menu set up and your workflow optimised, log on to POS and give your menu a test run. Now you can build from here and customise your menu further. Have fun!