Make the Most of Your Delivery Menus with Menu Management

Controlling your menus shouldn’t be complicated. When it comes to making changes to your menus, we know how important it is for customers to see the most accurate, up-to-date information at a glance. With Otter’s Menu Management solution, you can make adjustments to menus across all of your delivery platforms and locations in just a few clicks.

In this post, we’ll walk through how you can upload, edit, and publish your menus, mark items as unavailable, and change prices, categories, and pictures – all from one place. Ready to make the most of your delivery menus? Let’s dive into Menu Management with Otter!

Getting started with Menu Management

To begin, login to your Otter Dashboard and click on the “Menus” page. Here, you can import your menu from a delivery partner (like Uber Eats, DoorDash, or GrubHub) or create a new menu manually.

Importing an existing menu

To import an existing digital menu, click the “Import from existing service” button. Next, choose which Otter storefront(s) you’d like to import your menu to. Select the location where your menu should be published. Finally, decide the delivery service you’d like to import your menu from. 

Once the import process is complete, you’ll be able to see your imported menu in the main Menus section. Click the menu’s “Settings” icon to ensure that the information you’ve added is correct, and make any edits as needed.

Creating your menu manually

To manually create a delivery menu, click “Create manually within Otter” in the Menu page’s “Add Menu” section. Now, add your menu’s name. Select the brand you want to add this menu to, then click “Continue”. Finally, select the locations where you’d like to serve this menu. 

Complete your new menu by adding categories, items, modifiers, service hours, and photos. (We’ll cover how to edit this information below.)

Editing your menu

‍

Edit a specific item by clicking on it in the menu. From here, you can change the item’s name, description, image, and price per delivery app. Add the item to a category and, if applicable, tag it as being alcohol or not. To update an item’s price, click on the item, then click “Add item price”.

Click a category to change its name or description. You can also add and remove items from a category, and delete the category entirely with the according buttons. 

To add modifiers or edit existing ones, click “Edit modifier group”. Here, you can edit modifier names and descriptions. You can also add modifiers, rearrange them, change their prices, and specify if they’re optional or not.

Adjust your menu’s service hours by clicking on the “Hours” tab. You can enable unique hours by day, and add opening and closing times. On this page, you can also add special hours (for national holidays, events, etc.).

Navigate to the “Photos” tab to add or edit menu images. Select the photos you want to pair with your items from the library, choose “Assign to items” from the dropdown menu, then click “Save”. You can also upload multiple photos at once with the “Add Photos” button.

Mark items as “Unavailable”

Managing item availability is easier than ever with Menu Management! You’ll see all of your items on the main Menus page. To mark an item as unavailable (or “86” it), select the item, then click the “Available” icon in the top-right of the page. 

If you know that your item will only be unavailable for today, select “Unavailable today” from the “Change availability” menu. This will keep the item unavailable for the rest of the day, then automatically mark it as available tomorrow. When you’re not sure how long an item will be unavailable, mark it as “Unavailable indefinitely”. You will need to mark indefinitely unavailable items as available again manually. 

Use the list of locations on the left side of the “Change availability” menu to determine where the item will be available or unavailable. Finally, click the “Publish availability” button to update the item’s status!

If you want to mark multiple items as unavailable, select the applicable items from the list, then click the "Change Availability” button to update their statuses. You can also mark modifiers as unavailable by clicking on the “Modifiers” tab and pressing the “Change Availability” button.

How to copy a menu

To make a copy of your menu, follow these easy steps:

1. Open your restaurant on your Otter Dashboard
2. Go to the “Menus” page
3. Navigate to the menu you want to copy
4. Click on the “copy” icon on the menu’s rightmost side
5. Type in a name for your copied menu
6. Click “Duplicate”. You’re done!

What is “Multi-Menus”?

Otter’s Multi-Menus feature allows you to run multiple menus for a single location. You can set up specific menus for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and more directly within your Otter Dashboard! 

To add a new menu to a location, navigate to the "Overview” tab and select "Add Menu”. Fill out your menu by adding Categories, Items, and Modifier Groups. 

After you have added a menu, a pop-up prompt will ask you to update the menu’s service hours. To do so, open Business Manager and go to the "Hours" tab. Here, you can manually set the hours your menu will be active for. Finally, specify which days and times your menu will be offered on all delivery channels.

Make your menus the best they can be with Menu Management!

A strong delivery menu is the first step to a successful order. With Menu Management, you’ll be able to create the best menus your restaurant has ever used, and update them seamlessly whenever you please. Use Menu Management’s range of customization features to get the most out of your digital menus, and keep orders – and profits – flowing in.

Enjoy Menu Management on the go with the new Otter Restaurant Manager app, available now for iOS!

‍