QR code menu or printed menu: what suits your restaurant

The good side of QR

• Instant updates. Change a price and it’s changed.
• No reprinting every time the menu changes.
• Several languages without multiplying physical menus.
• Useful as an extra: a long wine list, detailed allergen information, today’s specials.

The downside of QR

• It depends on the customer: battery, data, signal in your venue and knowing how to use the camera.
• Not everyone wants it. Many older customers, and plenty of younger ones, prefer paper.
• Small screen. A PDF designed for A4 makes people pinch, zoom and scroll.
• Phones on the table for the whole meal, just when you wanted people to talk.
• Grubby or peeling stickers, and broken links if you change website or service.
• Less hospitality. Handing over a menu is part of welcoming someone.

The good side of paper

• Everyone can read it, instantly and without relying on anything.
• The whole menu at a glance, shared around the table.
• It carries your venue’s personality: paper, design, feel.
• It helps selling at the table: staff can point, recommend and explain.

The downside of paper

• You have to reprint when prices or dishes change.
• It wears and stains, especially without a sleeve.
• Hygiene: it needs sleeves or lamination that can be wiped clean.

Allergens: nobody left without information

In the UK, allergen information for food that isn’t prepacked must be available for the 14 allergens. You can give it in writing or verbally, but if you rely on staff, a written notice must tell customers how to get it, and the Food Standards Agency’s best practice guidance (2025) recommends written information backed by a conversation. If your menu only exists behind a QR code, a customer with no phone, no battery or no signal must still be able to get that information another way: in writing in the venue and from your staff.

The safest approach is to always have the information in writing on the premises (on the printed menu or in an allergen matrix) and a visible notice explaining how to ask for it. In the EU the same 14 allergens apply, with the details set by each country. In the US, where a state or city has adopted the 2022 FDA Food Code, customers must be told in writing about major allergens in unpackaged food. If in doubt, ask your local environmental health or food safety team.

Prices on display

In Great Britain, the Price Marking (Food and Drink Services) Order 2003 requires food and drink prices to be shown at or near the entrance to the eating area, so customers can read them before they go in, and Northern Ireland has an equivalent order. Other countries set their own rules: in France, for example, the menu has to be displayed outside during service. Before you do away with paper, check what applies where you trade.

Our advice: paper and QR

• A printed menu on the table, for everyone.
• QR as an extra: for other languages, the full wine list or detailed allergen information.
• The same content in both. If you change a price, change it in both.

With MenuDesign you don’t maintain two menus: the same menu gives you the PDF to print and the PDF or image for the QR code. Change the price once and export again.

If you do a QR menu, do it properly

• A format made for phones: narrow and portrait, like the slim A4 or the 9:16 story.
• A light file that loads quickly on a weak signal.
• A stable link: replace the file without changing the address, so you never reprint the QR code.
• A decent-sized QR code, with good contrast, tested on several phones.
• A line next to the code: “Menu and allergens. Prefer paper? Just ask for a printed menu.”
• Printed menus available for anyone who asks.

All of this is free: MenuDesign doesn’t charge for exports or for any format. See also how to print a menu.