Digital Signage for Restaurants and Digital Menu Boards

Picture a busy Friday. The printed menu still lists a dish the kitchen ran out of at noon. The lunch offer is still up at seven in the evening. A customer asks if the price on the chalkboard is right, and whoever is serving has to go and check. None of it is a disaster. But altogether it costs you sales and slows the service down.

Digital signage for restaurants fixes this. Menus, prices and promotions sit on screens you control from one dashboard, whether you run one cafe or a hundred sites. Here we go through how it works in a normal day, what to look for in the software and how MRG Systems gets you started.

Why restaurants are dropping printed menus

Printed boards cost you in a few ways. Reprinting costs money. A wrong price costs trust, since customers spot it at the till. Slow changes cost sales too. A dish that isn't selling stays on the board, and so does one that's sold out. Screens take care of this. You edit a price once and every screen shows it. Breakfast gives way to lunch at the time you pick. You can also put your best-margin dishes up front and shift the focus hour by hour.

Where digital signage for restaurants works best

• Menu boards above the counter or the queue, showing dishes, prices and meal deals
• Specials boards near the entrance, set to appear at the right time of day
• Promotion screens that push offers, add-ons and combos right where customers decide
• Order displays showing order numbers and collection status, so staff answer fewer questions
• Window screens that catch people walking past and show what's on today

Most sites start with menu boards and add the rest later. So you can grow in steps.

A day with digital signage for restaurant menu boards

In the morning, your menu boards switch from breakfast to lunch to dinner at the times you set. Prices come from one central list, so when a dish costs more, every site updates at once. Head office can launch a seasonal menu without printing a single sheet. At lunch, the queue is the problem. Screens help people decide before they get to the till, and that shortens the wait. A specials board by the door can push the dishes the kitchen wants to move.

By evening a screen can do things a poster never could. Show the dessert menu as tables finish their mains. Promote the cocktail list from five o'clock. Advertise next week's event. Nobody on the team has to touch anything during service. Keep menu content short and clear. A dish name, a price and one good photo beat a screen packed with text.

What to look for in digital signage software for restaurants

The screen is the easy part. The software decides whether your team uses the system or gives up after a month. When you plan a project, ask these:

• Can a shift manager change an item quickly, without calling head office?
• Can head office change a price everywhere while one site keeps a local special?
• Does the menu switch between breakfast, lunch and dinner on its own?
• Can it pull prices and availability from systems you already use, where a connection is possible?
• Can allergen information be shown clearly on screen?
• Who do you call when something goes wrong during service?

Simple rule: if the team finds the system hard, they will stop using it. LiveSpace is our own digital signage software for restaurants. We design it and our UK team supports it, so the people who answer the phone know it well. It handles everything from one cafe screen to a national estate. You can schedule content, update it remotely and link it to data feeds where a connection is available.

Cafes, pubs and takeaways

It works at every size. A cafe can start with one screen behind the counter, showing the menu, a loyalty offer and the day's bake. A pub can rotate food, drinks and sport fixtures, with different content in the bar and the dining room. A takeaway can put a bright, high-contrast screen in the window so people decide before they reach the door. A first project doesn't need to be big. One screen that works properly teaches you more than ten screens planned on paper.

Chains and franchises

For a franchise, the hard part is staying consistent without being rigid. The brand needs the same look and the same core menu at every site. The owner of one site needs room for a local offer, and a way to react when the kitchen runs short.

LiveSpace manages content centrally across lots of screens and locations, and lets you give single sites their own content where you want. A central team can launch a campaign to every site in one go, then leave local details to the people on the ground. You also get one place to check what is on each screen, so no more photos sent in from branches.

Screens built for kitchens and counters

Hardware has to suit the room. A screen behind a counter deals with heat, steam and long hours. A screen in a window has to beat daylight. We pick commercial panels for each position, not one model everywhere. Before our engineers leave, they also check that every menu can be read from the queue. A menu you can only read from the counter defeats the point of having it on a screen.

Getting started without closing

Most restaurants can't shut for an installation, so we plan around service. We start with a visit. We look at your counter, your queue and the screens you already have. Then we agree what each screen is for, and help build your first menus and templates so your team isn't starting from a blank page.

Our UK engineers install every screen and get it working. After that, our support team in Gloucestershire can help the same day. They are the people who built LiveSpace. MRG Systems has worked in visual communication for 43 years and supports more than 25,000 connected screens, so we have seen most problems before.

What it costs

The price depends on how many screens you need, how big they are, whether you want installation and which software plan suits you. We give you a clear quote after a visit. When you compare options, look past the screen price. Printing and reprinting add up, and so does staff time spent swapping boards. It's easier to judge digital signage for restaurants when you set it against what you spend on paper today.

See your menu on screen

The easiest way to understand digital signage for restaurants is to see your own menu on a screen. Send us a copy of your current menu, and we will show you what it could look like. We can also visit your site, talk through screens and software, and give you a clear quote. Book a free consultation, ask for a demo, or call +44 (0)1453 820 840.