Questions and answers about migrating from a traditional menu to a digital one

Migrating from a traditional menu to a digital one means replacing or supplementing printed menus with a menu accessible online, which customers open by scanning a QR code with their own phone. You no longer need printers, laminators, or redesign costs every time a price changes.

The main reasons restaurants make this transition include:

• Reducing the costs of printing and updating physical menus
• Updating prices and products in real time, at no additional cost
• Displaying information about food allergens and nutritional values according to current legislation
• A modern and hygienic experience for customers
• The ability to add attractive photos for each product

You can read more in our article: Why modern restaurants are giving up printed menus.

With Menivo, the entire process of migrating from a traditional menu to a digital one can be completed in less than an hour for a restaurant with an average-sized menu. If you already have product photos and dish lists, you can be ready in 30–45 minutes.

The main steps are:

• Creating a free account on menivo.io
• Adding restaurant information (name, address, logo, hours)
• Creating menu categories (Appetizers, Main Courses, Desserts, etc.)
• Adding products with photos, prices, descriptions, and allergens
• Generating and downloading the QR code

Check out our detailed guide: How to create a digital menu for your restaurant in 10 minutes.

Not necessarily. Many restaurants use a hybrid approach, especially at the beginning: they keep a few physical menus for customers less familiar with technology and place QR codes on each table. Over time, as customers get used to it, the number of printed menus naturally decreases.

Menivo allows you to manage both versions without any problem — the digital menu is always up to date, regardless of whether physical copies still exist in the restaurant or not.

A QR code is a two-dimensional code that customers scan with their phone's camera, without installing any additional app. When scanned, the phone automatically opens your restaurant's menu in the browser.

In Menivo, generating the QR code is simple: after creating your menu, you access the QR Code section from the admin panel, generate your restaurant's unique code, and download it in high-resolution format, ready for printing on table stands, stickers, or posters.

Learn more about how the technology works: What is a QR code and how does it work?

Displaying food allergens is a legal obligation in Romania, and Menivo helps you comply with it easily. When adding or editing each product in the menu, you can check off the complete list of allergens recognized at the European level (gluten, dairy, eggs, nuts, soy, etc.).

These will be displayed visibly in the digital menu, so that customers can make informed decisions before ordering. In addition, Menivo provides an AI-based allergen generator, which suggests the appropriate allergens based on the ingredients entered.

Useful resources on this topic:

• Restaurant food allergens – legal obligations in Romania (Complete guide)
• How to use the AI-based food allergen generator – Menivo Guide

Yes. Menivo includes support for nutritional information at the product level. You can specify calories, proteins, carbohydrates, and fats for each dish, and this information will be visible to customers directly in the digital menu.

If you haven't calculated the nutritional values of your dishes yet, you can use the dedicated calculator available on the platform. Read the complete guide: Nutritional Values Calculator for Menu | Menivo.

This is one of the biggest advantages of a digital menu over a printed one. Any change — price, description, photo, availability — is made directly from the Menivo admin panel and becomes immediately visible to customers, without additional costs and without reprinting anything.

Menivo's drag-and-drop editor allows you to easily reorder categories and products, adapting the menu to the season, stock, or special promotions, in a matter of seconds.

Yes. Menivo supports bilingual menus, in Romanian and English. You can add translations for product names, descriptions, ingredients, and opening hours. Customers can switch between languages directly from the menu interface, without needing two separate QR codes.

This feature is especially valuable for restaurants in tourist areas or large cities, where a significant portion of customers prefer to read the menu in English.

The number of available categories and products depends on the subscription plan chosen in Menivo. There are plans for small restaurants, with a limited number of products, as well as unrestricted plans for restaurants with extensive menus.

You can check the full details about the available plans directly on menivo.io and choose the option suitable for the size of your business.

Yes. Menivo offers import functionality from Excel files (.xlsx / .xls), which makes migrating from a traditional menu to a digital one even faster. You can download the import template from the platform, fill in the data about products, categories, and prices, then upload the file and Menivo automatically processes all the content.

This option is ideal for restaurants with large menus, which would otherwise have to enter dozens or hundreds of products manually.

This is one of the most common concerns of restaurant owners. The reality is that scanning a QR code is now a standard action on any modern smartphone — the phone's camera automatically recognizes the QR code without any additional apps, on both iPhone and Android.

However, we recommend not completely eliminating physical menus in the first few months after migration. A gradual transition, in which staff help customers scan the code when needed, ensures a pleasant experience for all age groups.

Absolutely. Menivo is a flexible solution that works excellently for any type of HoReCa establishment: restaurants, cafes, bars, pizzerias, fast-food places, terraces, or hotels. The category and product structure easily adapts to any type of culinary offering.

If you want to find out how Menivo compares to other digital menu platforms available on the market, you can read: Menivo vs. Other Digital Menu Platforms.