How to update a restaurant menu online every week without a rebuild
A weekly menu changes too often to rebuild the site each time, and a PDF that someone has to export, upload and replace goes stale within a fortnight. The reliable pattern is to keep dishes as entries in a list the kitchen can edit, give one person the job on a fixed day, and check the result on a phone before service. Here's how to update a restaurant menu online every week with Anticode.
Why a web page beats a PDF
Diners read menus on phones, often standing outside deciding whether to come in. A PDF makes them pinch and scroll; a web page reflows to the screen. A page can also be found by search engines dish by dish, read aloud by screen readers, and changed in seconds. The one case for a PDF is a fixed menu you print anyway, and even then a web version alongside it serves phones better.
Set the menu up once
- Create a collection for dishes. In Anticode's dashboard, add a CMS collection called something like
menu. Collections have typed fields: give it a name (text), a description (text), a price (number), a section such as Starters or Mains (text), allergens and dietary marks (text), and optionally a photo (image). - Add this week's dishes as entries. Each dish is one entry. The first text field becomes its title.
- Put the menu on the site. Ask for it in a sentence: "add a menu section that lists the dishes from the menu collection, grouped by section". The collection also gets its own pages on the published site, at
/menu/for the list and/menu/<dish>for each entry. - Publish, and check the menu on a phone.
Write prices as plain numbers in the price field and keep the currency symbol in the page's wording, so a price change is a single number to edit.
The weekly routine
| Step | Who | What |
|---|---|---|
| Monday afternoon | Head chef | Sends the final list of dishes, prices and allergens to the person who updates the site |
| Tuesday morning | Menu editor | Edits, adds or removes entries in the dashboard |
| Tuesday morning | Menu editor | Publishes again if the home page shows a menu section |
| Before service | Front of house | Opens the menu on a phone and checks it against the printed one |
One timing detail matters. The collection's own pages (/menu/ and each dish) are drawn from the CMS when someone visits, so they show an edit as soon as you save it. A menu section on the home page is part of the published page, so publish again after editing for that section to catch up. If in doubt, publish; it takes seconds and the publish checks run as usual.
Who should hold the job
One named person, with one named cover. In a small restaurant that's often the owner or the general manager. If the site is in a Team workspace, give them a seat as a member: they can edit and publish, but can't delete the project or take the site down, which suits someone whose only job on the site is the menu. Because the site may collect enquiries or bookings, the account owner and the person publishing need two-factor sign-in before the site can be published.
Allergens and accuracy
Allergen information online is something many countries regulate, and diners rely on it. Keep allergens as a field on every dish, written the same way each time, and add a line on the page asking guests to tell staff about allergies before ordering. The kitchen, not the website editor, should own the allergen list. A wrong price annoys people; a wrong allergen can hurt someone.
What goes wrong
- The editor is off sick. The cover person needs their own sign-in, set up in advance, not a shared password.
- Dishes sell out mid-week. Delete or edit the entry; the collection pages update straight away.
- Old dishes linger. Remove last week's entries rather than leaving them with "not available" in the description.
- The printed and online menus disagree. Update both from the same list, on the same day.
How you know it's working
Staff stop hearing "but the website says". The menu online matches the printed one every Tuesday at noon. And the job takes the same quarter of an hour each week, done by the same person.
Limits
There's no scheduling: you can't prepare next week's menu to go live by itself on Tuesday. There's no online ordering or table booking linked to the menu, and no translation into other languages. For bookings, see the booking calendar, which has no deposits or calendar sync. More on menus and pages in the restaurant website guide and CMS collections.
Questions people ask
Do I need to rebuild the site to change the menu?
No. Edit the entries in the dashboard. The collection's pages update at once; publish again if your home page has a menu section.
What's the quickest way to update a restaurant menu online every week?
Keep dishes as entries in a CMS collection, give one person the job on a set day, and check the published menu on a phone before service.
Can I add photos of dishes?
Yes. Add an image field to the collection and give each dish that has a photo its image address (an https link).