menu-examples
Per process this page is for collecting real world examples of restaurant menu publishing, publishing information about menu items (food) intended for human consumption in an organized manner, towards the development of a menu microformat.
Overview
Menus on the web have many of the same features as printed menus used in restaurants. They are a list of products organized by type. On the web, some menus include items on one page, with sections for different categories, e.g., appetizers, salads, main dishes, desserts, etc. On other sites, different menu sections are on different pages, e.g. /menu/salads, /menu/soups, etc. Some web site menus contain cocktails, either in a separate page or in its own section. Wine lists are quite common too, usually on a separate page.
There is no uniform set of category names. Some restaurants use "main dish", others denote main dish with "entree". Some use "starter", others "appetizer", to denote a first course. Also, larger menus often break up main dishes into categories, e.g., "pasta", "steak", etc. There are of course language differences, e.g., in French one finds "entrée" for first course and "plat principal" for the main dish.
Examples
Example menus are organized by location.
France
French menus are sometimes organized by course instead of category, i.e., entrée (first course), plat principal (main course), and dessert. Many French restaurants offer à la carte and prix fixe menus. À la carte are structured like American menus, with individually priced items. Prix fixe menus are priced per person, with sections for each course that offer a limited number of choices.
Break Restaurant
Each item on Break's menu has a name, description, and price. Some also include tags like "Végétalien" (vegan) and épicé (spicy). The categories are simplified: plats (plates), sides, and desserts. There is also a sections for drinks, broken up into several subsections: cocktails, wine, beer, aperitifs, etc. On some of the drink sections, each item has its own price. On several -- alcool, cocktails classiques, and cocktails création -- there is only one price printed below the heading, with that price applying to all the items beneath it.
Benoit
Benoit has two different menus. One is a prix fixe lunch menu with three unnamed, implicit sections for first course, main course, and dessert. Each section offers three choices. The à la carte menu has sections like hors d'œuvre froids (cold appetizers), poissons (fish), viandes (meat), etc.
Italy
As in France, some Italian menus are organized by course, e.g., primo for first course, secondo for second course. Some menu sections, however, are based on a food cagegory, e.g. carne for meat, pesce for fish.
'A Taverna Do' Re
'A Taverna Do' Re's menu has 3 sections: "Antipasti", "I primi", and "La carne alla brace". The items have a long name that functions as a name-and-description, and a price.
United States
T.S. McHugh's Irish Pub
This pub menu's food items have a name, description, and price. Some items have two sizes (small and large) with a price for each. Also, some items contain a base price, and one or more "upsell" options with an upcharge price, e.g., nachos $8.75, add guacamole $2.00.
The draughts on the menu are organized into four categories. Each listing includes a name. The microbrew draughts include two additional pieces of information: ibus and abv. There are also two prices (one for pint, one for pitcher) for each draught category. Those prices are listed in the heading for each category, rather than repeated in each individual listing.
Sal Y Limon
Sal Y Limon's menu is one page that changes when you click different categories. Each item has only a name and description, no price.
Canlis
The menu at Canlis has only name and description for each item.
Tavolata
Tavolata's menu items each have a name, price, and description.
99 Restaurant
Their menu is spread out over several pages. The menu for steaks is a good example. Each menu item includes a name, a description, and calories. Photos of the items are linked, but not part of the initial view of the page. Also, there are no prices, presumably because the price changes by location. There are also options for many items, like adding a salad or ordering a larger portion.
Bertucci's
Bertucci's menu is on one page, with sections for salads, soups, entrees, etc. Each section has a picture, but individual items do not. They contain only a name, description, and price.
international restaurant chains
Large restaurants/chains must supply nutritional information on their menus in the United States. All the entries in this section show calories for each menu item.
Applebee's
They use one page, where the url changes as you scroll. Each part works the same. The sandwiches section to take one example has a list of items with name, picture, price, and calories, and, when you hover a mouse pointer over it, order buttons.
Olive Garden
The Olive Garden's dinner entrees menu (N.B. you may have to supply a location before they'll show you a menu) has a name, photo, price, and calories for each item, along with an order button, a bookmark-like "mark this as a favorite" button, and a tag if the item is "new".
third party services
Open Table
Open Table is a third party reservation site that publishes information about each restaurant that uses their service. To take one example, here's T.S. McHugh's Pub on Open Table. The menu is duplicated from their web site.
Grub Hub
Grub Hub is a delivery service. Like Open Table, it publishes menus for restaurants that they provide delivery for. For example, here's Grub Hub's Sal Y Limon menu. It has the same items as the restaurant's own website, though the Grub Hub version includes prices.
Toast Tab
Toast Tab is a restaurant P.O.S. system. It offers an online ordering for pickup service that publishes the restaurant's menu. Since Toast Tab is publishing from the restaurant's POS system -- i.e., the same system that employees use to enter an order for patrons in the restaurant -- their menus are likely to be accurate.
Many restaurants publish their menu on more than one site, usually because they subscribe to a third party service which copies their menu for the convenience of that service's customers. At minimum, this entails reentering data. Often, the menus are out of sync.
The Sitting Room
The Sitting Room is a wine bar in Seattle, Washington, United States.
These five urls appear to contain three different menus:
- Trip Advisor and Open Table
- Sitting Room (i.e. their own website) and Toast Tab
- Yelp