Create Menus with Square for Restaurants

One of the first steps in setting up your Square for Restaurants account is to create your menus. You can quickly upload all of your existing items or create brand new menus, right from your Square Dashboard.

Create Items

Before you can create menus for your Restaurants account, you’ll need to set up your item library.

1. From your online Square Dashboard, select Items & Orders > Items.

2. Fill in the item information.

3. Fill in the variation information. If your item has a bar code, add the SKU or UPC in the SKU field.

   Add single variations:
   
   Add multiple variations:
   

4. You can add variations to an item by clicking Add Variations in the single variation view and Add/Remove Variations in the multi-variation view. This will open up the screen below allowing you to quickly add a new variation name, price and SKU.
   

5. If you have already created a menu, select the menus that you’d like to add your item to. If you have not created a menu, you can add items to menus later.

6. If you have Modifier Sets created, you can add a modifier set to your item. If not, learn how to create Modifier Sets.

7. Once you complete editing properties for the item, click Save.

Create a Menu

You can create a menu for your Restaurants account from either your Square Dashboard or from the Restaurants app on an iPad.

From your Square Dashboard:

1. Open the navigation menu and click Items & Orders > Menus.

2. Click Create a Menu in the upper right corner. If you need to edit a menu, select one of your existing menus from the Menu dropdown.

3. Enter in your Menu Name and choose the location.

4. If your restaurant only has one location, that’s okay – assign the menu to the single location.

From the Restaurants app on an iPad:

1. Tap Menus > Create a Menu. If you already have menus created, tap Edit menus.

2. Enter the manager passcode, and sign in to the menu editor using your Square Dashboard email and password. 

3. Toggle on Stay signed in for 90 days if you want to skip the sign-in process next time you need to edit a menu. Note: Anyone who has permission to edit the items in the point of sale will have access to the menu editor. 

4. Tap Sign in. 

5. Enter your Menu Name and choose the location. If your restaurant only has one location, assign the menu to the single location.

6. Tap Create a Menu and start adding items. 

7. To save your changes, tap Save.

Edit a Menu

To make changes to an existing menu from your Square Dashboard:

1. From the navigation menu, select Items & Orders > Menus.

2. Select the menu you’d like to update.

3. Add additional display groups, items or modifiers. You can click Edit Items to update multiple items at once. Once you’re all set, select Done Editing.

4. To remove items, click more options for the item and select Remove.

5. Click Save.

From the Restaurants app on an iPad: 

1. Tap Menus

2. Enter the manager passcode, and sign in to the menu editor using your Square Dashboard email and password. 

3. Toggle on Stay signed in for 90 days if you want to skip the sign-in process next time you need to edit a menu. Note: Anyone who has permission to edit the items in the point of sale will have access to the menu editor. 

4. Tap Sign in. 

5. Select the menu you’d like to update and start adding items. 

6. To save your changes, tap Save.

Menu Types

With Square for Restaurants, Menus are designed to 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 Restaurants account.

For example, if your restaurant has different menus for breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner, these should be four different menus in your POS. If you only use one menu throughout the day, every day, you can keep it simple and just create one menu. You can also create separate menus for special events or different dayparts.

No need to worry about duplicating items or display groups, since you can have items or display groups assigned to multiple menus at one time.

Create Display Groups

A Display Group is a simple tool to help you organise how your menus appear on your Restaurants POS app. Display groups utilise colour, size and placement options to keep your menu items organised for easy access in-app. Note: At this time, display groups are not included in reporting.

Display groups function as subsections of your menu. If you have subsections in your physical menus, like appetisers, wines or desserts, you can create display groups to match with your physical menus. Display groups can be used across multiple menus. They are also separate designations from categories, allowing you to customise your menu layout without affecting your reporting or printer routing.

To create a display group:

1. Head to Items & Orders > Menus tab on your online Square Dashboard.

2. Select Add Display Group and enter the new Display Group name.

3. Choose the Display Group colour.

4. Select the placement of your Display Group. Note: Once you have multiple Display Groups, you can choose to show the groups on the Home Screen or within other groups.

5. Save.

To add items to your display groups:

1. At the bottom of the Display Group, click the Add Item field.

2. Scroll through the drop-down or type the item name.

3. If you need to edit or remove an item, just click the three horizontal dots > Remove from Display Group.

Grid Layout

Adding the correct items and Display Groups to your Menu is, of course, important, but you’ll also want to make sure your Menu is easy for your team members to navigate. Using your Grid Layout option, you have complete control of how your Square for Restaurants POS will look.

To access and edit your Grid Layout:

1. Select the Apps Menu in the upper left corner and click Menus.

2. Click the grey Grid Layout button in the right corner.

3. Use the option bar on the right to adjust the tile size, move pages, or delete tiles.

4. You can move tiles around the screen by dragging and dropping the tiles to a new location on the screen. Keep in mind, a tile’s location relative to other tiles may limit its size.

5. If you want to add items or display groups to your menu, hover over a blank space and click the +.

6. Once you are done, click Save.

Note: You can also add functions in your Grid Layout, to help your team members get to some of their most common actions quickly.

Square for Restaurants is designed to be versatile and is optimised for many different service and management styles. We encourage you to play around with both and see which works best for your business. Review the full comparison of features between Square for Restaurants Free, Plus and Premium Plans.

Generate an Online Ordering Site

As you create menus, you can automatically generate an online ordering page with Square Online. To start:

1. From your online Square Dashboard, go to Items & Orders > Menus.

2. Click Online ordering to see a preview of your online ordering site.

3. Click Site setup to generate an online ordering site with Square Online.

Once generated, you can navigate the Square Online Overview page in Dashboard to access the different features within Square Online, or navigate the Square Online site editor to create an ordering page that allows customers to quickly purchase your menu items. Learn more about getting started with Square Online.