QR menus for bars and pubs: the complete guide

A bar menu has a harder life than a restaurant menu. It gets read in the dark, on a rooftop in the wind, by a guest holding a drink in the other hand. The cocktail list changes every season, the draft taps change whenever a keg runs dry, and the printed version is out of date within a week of arriving from the printer.

This guide is for bar, pub, rooftop lounge and hotel bar operators. It covers how to organise a drinks list that changes at different speeds, how to handle draft and bottle beer, a launch routine for new cocktails, the practical side of scanning in low light and outdoors, and how to run happy hour and serve international guests from the same menu.

1Three lists that move at three speeds

Treat your bar menu as three separate lists, because they change on completely different schedules:

List	How often it changes	What goes wrong on paper
Draft and bottled beer	Weekly, sometimes nightly	A tap listed that has been off for days
Signature cocktails	Every season or two	Reprint cost delays new drinks for months
Spirits, wine and classics	Rarely, except prices	Old prices crossed out by hand

On a QR menu these are categories, but the maintenance mindset is different for each. Beer needs someone responsible every shift. Cocktails need a launch and retirement process. Spirits need a price check whenever a distributor invoice changes. Put a name next to each list, even in a small bar, so it is clear who updates what.

Order the categories by what your guests actually order first. In a cocktail bar that is signatures, then classics, then beer, wine, spirits, soft drinks and food. In a pub it is usually draft first. Bar snacks belong at the end, but add them as an optional group on popular drinks too ("Add a bowl of fries") so they get seen.

2Managing beer: from bottles to draft

A tap list works best when every entry answers the same questions in the same order: name, style, strength and pour size. For example: "Pilsner, lager, 4.8% ABV, 330 ml or 500 ml". Pour sizes are a required choice with their own prices, so one beer is one item, not two.

Bottles can be grouped by style (lagers, wheat beers, darker beers, non-alcoholic) instead of by brand, because guests who do not know the brands still know whether they want something light or something dark.

The moment a keg kicks, the item has to come off the menu or be marked as sold out. This is the single biggest advantage over paper: the bartender does it from a phone behind the bar in ten seconds, before the next guest orders it. Our guide on handling sold-out items explains why hiding versus showing an item as unavailable matters.

3A launch routine for new cocktails

Bars that wait for the next print run to launch drinks end up launching all their new cocktails at once, twice a year. A digital menu lets you run a steady program instead:

1. Test it as a bartender's pick. Add the new drink at the top of the signatures category, labelled "Bartender's pick", with a photo shot on your actual bar.
2. Give it two weeks. Track how often it is ordered compared with your established signatures.
3. Keep, tweak or retire. If it sells, drop the label and move it into position. If it does not, retire it before the garnish stock goes to waste.
4. Retire one to add one. Keep the signature list to a number your team can make well at the busiest hour, usually eight to twelve drinks.

Write cocktail descriptions around taste, not recipe. "Bright, sour, a little smoky" is more useful to a guest than a list of six ingredients. Keep the base spirit visible though, because it is often the deciding factor.

4Scanning in the dark, the wind and the sun

Most bar QR failures are physical, not digital. Before you print, test these conditions at your own venue:

• Size: In dim light, print the code larger than you think, at least 4 to 5 cm wide, so phone cameras lock on quickly.
• Contrast: Dark code on a light matte background. Avoid glossy lamination, which reflects candles and spotlights straight into the camera.
• Light: A small table lamp or a lit table stand beats any amount of design. If guests use their flash, the code is too dark.
• Wind: On rooftops, use weighted stands or stick the code to the table itself. Loose cards end up on the street below.
• Sun and spills: Outdoor codes fade and get wet. Use outdoor-grade vinyl and keep spares, because the link behind the code never changes.
• The page itself: Open the menu on a phone at low brightness. If the text is hard to read, fix the photos and contrast before opening night.

For placement rules in more detail, see our QR placement guide.

5Happy hour and slow nights

A happy hour on paper is a separate insert that someone forgets to remove at 9 pm. On a digital menu, a promotion can have a start and end time. In Menyo, time-bound promotion banners and offers with time-of-day or day-of-week triggers are part of the Professional plan, so a "2 for 1 on draft, 6 to 8 pm" offer appears and disappears on schedule.

Use this to fill the slow hours you already know about, not to discount your busiest nights. A practical way to size it: take your average drinks revenue for the target hour on a normal week, decide what uplift in orders would justify the discount, and review after four weeks. If the hour did not fill, change the offer or drop it. There is more on structuring offers in our promotions guide.

6Hotel bars and international guests

Hotel and resort bars in Sharm El Sheikh, Hurghada or the North Coast serve guests from many countries on the same night. Three things matter most:

• Language. Translate descriptions, but leave brand and cocktail names as they are. Menyo's translation keeps brand names intact and supports Arabic, Italian, Spanish and Russian on top of your base language. Multi-language menus start on the Professional plan, which includes up to three languages.
• Currency and taxes. Show one currency clearly, and say whether prices include tax and service. A guest converting in their head should not also have to guess the final bill.
• Charging. If drinks are charged to the room, make sure staff capture the room number with the order. Test this workflow before the season starts.

Hotel groups running several outlets will find the wider picture in our hotel and resort menu guide.

7Frequently asked questions

Can guests order rounds from their table?

Yes, with a menu that supports table ordering. On Menyo, dine-in ordering and the call-waiter button start on the Growth plan. Each round arrives on the staff dashboard linked to the table.

Should a bar still keep printed menus?

Keep a few printed copies at the bar for guests who prefer them or whose phone battery is dead. They can be plain, since the QR menu carries the detail.

How do I stop the menu showing a beer we ran out of?

Make it one person's job each shift to update the tap list, and mark items as sold out the moment a keg runs dry. It takes seconds from a phone.

What does a bar QR menu cost with Menyo?

Plans start at $19/month for a menu only. Table ordering starts at $49/month, and scheduled happy-hour promotions plus multiple languages are on the $99/month plan. See the pricing page for the full comparison.

8Getting it live before the weekend

Start with the list that hurts most, which for most bars is the beer and tap list. Get it accurate and assign one person to keep it that way. Then move the cocktails over with photos, and print codes that work in your actual lighting. More setups for nightlife venues are on our page for bars.

Build your bar menu on Menyo and update your tap list from behind the bar tonight.