Menu management · 8 min read
Availability, images, and featured items
Keep the menu honest and attractive day to day — 86 sold-out items in one tap, take photos that sell, feature your best dishes, and fix image uploads that fail or look wrong.
Who this is for
Owners, managers, and anyone running the menu during service.
Marking an item 86’d
When the kitchen runs out, toggle Available off on the item. The item disappears from the customer ordering app on the next load — customers can no longer order it, which means no awkward "sorry, we are out" calls and no refunds. The data, modifiers, and history are preserved; flip Available back on the moment stock returns.
Image guidance
- Landscape orientation, ideally 4:3 or 16:9, at around 1500 px wide.
- Real photos beat stock imagery — customers detect mismatches.
- Avoid white-background catalog shots; they look out of place against your branded storefront.
- Compress to JPG quality around 80 percent before upload. Anything over 2 MB slows first paint on a customer’s phone.
Two ways to feature an item
- Move it to the top of its category by dragging it. Easiest, requires no extra setup.
- Create a dedicated "Recommended" or "Chef’s picks" category at the top of the menu, and put the items there. Most multi-branch operators use this pattern.
Picking what to feature, and how often
Three kinds of items earn a feature slot: bestsellers (high volume), high-margin items (good for the business), and signature dishes (good for brand). A balanced featured row touches all three rather than just bestsellers.
- Refresh weekly. Monthly is too slow for regulars; daily creates churn.
- Use Reports → Top items to see the actual sales-volume order, not your gut.
- First thing in the morning, pull featured status from anything you do not have stock for that day.
Troubleshooting: upload errors
The file is over our server limit (about 10 MB). Compress before retrying — most photo apps have a quality slider.
We accept JPG, PNG, and WebP. HEIC photos from iPhone need converting; iOS settings can save in JPG by default instead.
Network glitch. Try once more. If it persists, the storage provider may be rate-limiting; retry in five minutes.
Rare. The file is technically valid but our resizer choked on it. Re-export from your photo app and try again.
Troubleshooting: the image looks wrong after upload
- Stretched: you uploaded a square image and the storefront expects landscape. Re-crop to 4:3 or 16:9 before upload.
- Cropped: you uploaded a landscape image and a square crop took the centre. The crop is intentional for thumbnails; for hero shots, re-crop manually.
- Blurry: the source image was too small (under 800 px wide). Re-take or re-export at higher resolution.
- Heavy file size affecting load: the image is over 1 MB after our optimisations. Re-upload a more aggressively compressed version.
Frequently asked
Does toggling Available off delete anything?
No. The item keeps its image, modifiers, price, and order history. It is simply hidden from customers until you toggle it back on.How fast does an 86’d item disappear for customers?
On the next storefront load. Customers mid-browse will see it gone when they refresh or navigate; new visitors never see it.Can the AI write descriptions for items I just photographed?
Yes — when you import a menu from dish photos, the AI writes a short description for every item that does not have a printed one. You can also generate a description for any single item from the item editor.