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Create Menus with Square for Restaurants

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Who is this article for?
Business owners or team members with item creation permissions who are creating a menu for the first time or adding a new menu. Learn more about team member permissions with Square for Restaurants.

Before you begin

With Square for Restaurants, a menu is a specific set of display groups and items that will appear on your POS for a certain period of the day or a certain shift. Your menus should correspond with the physical menus in your restaurant. If you have multiple menus you use throughout the day, you should have multiple menus in your Square for Restaurants account. Menu creation is the last step in completing the required setup steps for Square for Restaurants.

You have two options for menu creation:

  • Upload an existing menu: This option is best if you already have an existing menu file saved to your computer.

  • Manually create a menu: This option is best if you don’t have an existing menu and want to create items while you create a menu.

Each option requires access to your Square Dashboard. If you choose to manually create a menu, you may also need access to your Square Restaurants POS app.

Option 1: Upload an existing menu

To upload an existing menu, you will need access to your Square Dashboard and a PDF, JPG, or PNG file of your existing menu.

  1. Log in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Menus.

  2. Click Create a Menu > Upload a file, photo, or URL of your existing menu.

  3. Select From my computer to import a file from your computer. Select By URL to paste a link to your menu.

  4. Click Continue.

  5. Enter a Menu name and select the Location where the menu will apply. Click Continue.

Square will send you an email when your menu is ready. Most menu builds take under 24 hours.

Option 2: Manually create a menu

You can manually create a menu from your Square Dashboard or your Square Restaurants POS app.

Create a menu manually from Square Dashboard

  1. Log in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Menus.
  2. Click Create a Menu > I’d rather build it manually.
  3. Enter a name in the Menu Name field and select the location where the menu will apply.
  4. Click Save.
  5. Click Add Item to select existing items from the drop-down menu. Select Add Multiple Items to create new items and add them to the menu.
  6. Enter an Item Name, a Kitchen Facing Name, and an Item Price.
  7. Click Create Items > Done to add the items to your menu.

Create a menu manually from the Square Restaurants POS app

Before you begin, download the Square Restaurants POS app, create a device code for your device, and log in to your Restaurants POS with your device code. Learn how to create a device code.

  1. Open your Restaurants POS and tap New Sale > Menus > Edit Menus > Create a Menu.
  2. Sign in to the menu editor with your Square Dashboard email and password.
  3. Enter a Menu name and select the location where the menu will apply.
  4. Tap Create a menu.
  5. Tap a plus icon (+) to add an item or display group. From the drop-down menu, select New Item, Existing Items, New Display Group, Existing Display Group, or Function.
  6. Enter an Item Name, Kitchen Name, Price, and Category. If you want to automatically add the item to a bill when selected, toggle on Automatically Add Item to cheque.
  7. Tap Save.
  8. Once you add all your items to your menu, tap Save.

Next steps

Learn more about menus and items from one of these Support Centre articles:

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