Bar menu: snacks, small plates and drinks

Usual sections

A bar menu is read standing up, at the bar or in a hurry. Few sections, all very clear:

1. Bar snacks: olives, nuts, crisps, pork scratchings, Scotch eggs.
2. Small plates or tapas: the heart of the menu.
3. Fried and sharing: calamari, wings, loaded fries, nachos, if you have a lot of them.
4. Sandwiches, toasties and burgers.
5. Drinks: draught beer, wine by the glass, soft drinks.
6. Desserts, if you serve them.

If you have dishes off the menu every day, add a “Specials” section or use a separate board. That way you don’t have to reprint the menu for one dish of the day.

Small or sharing: prices in columns

This is what makes a bar menu hard to do in a word processor. The solution is price columns with labels:

Example prices in pounds. In a tapas bar, the same idea works with three columns: “Tapa”, “Half” and “Full”.

• Labels go once, at the top of the section.
• If a dish doesn’t come in one size, put a dash.
• Don’t mix dishes with columns and dishes with a single unlabelled price in the same section: move them to another section.

Say how big a portion is

“Sharing” doesn’t mean the same in every bar. Give the quantity when it helps: “8 pieces”, “for two”, “200 g”. It avoids arguments and helps people order the right amount.

Drinks

If the drinks list is short, it goes on the same menu. Make sizes and prices clear: pint, half, glass of wine, a G&T. In England and Wales, the menu should also show that half pints, 125 ml glasses of wine and 25 ml spirits are available. If you have lots of wines or craft beers, they’re better on a separate list: see the wine list and beer menu guides.

Sandwiches and burgers

Here the price usually depends on the bread. Use columns too: “Sandwich” and “Baguette”, or “Half” and “Full”. In the description, only what’s inside: “Fish finger, tartare sauce and little gem”. If the bread changes (white, granary, gluten-free on request), say so once in the section note rather than on every dish.

Common mistakes on bar menus

• Prices corrected in biro or with stickers on top.
• Columns without labels: customers can’t tell whether 7 is the small or the sharing portion.
• Dishes that no longer exist, which staff have to cross out by word of mouth.

Design that works in a bar

• Counter (tavern feel, condensed lettering) is the template’s style.
• Riviera, Poster and Vermouth give a more modern or more Spanish feel.
• Pub is made for a British pub or alehouse.
• A4 in a sleeve for the tables, an A3 poster behind the bar and a 16:9 screen for the TV: all from the same content.

Allergens at the bar

The classics hide plenty: croquettes (gluten, eggs, milk), Scotch eggs (gluten, eggs), fish and chips (fish, gluten, and often eggs or milk in the batter), bravas with aioli (eggs), marinated anchovies (fish and sulphites). And a shared fryer can pass traces of gluten or fish to the chips. Mark them dish by dish; the guide to allergens on menus explains how.

Make it in MenuDesign

Open the bar menu template, take a photo of your current menu or paste the text. Check that every price sits in its column, mark the allergens and download the PDF. Free, no account, and saved in your browser for the next time you change a price.