Create a menu
About menu creation
With Square for Restaurants, a menu is a specific set of display groups and items that will appear on your point of sale for a certain period of the day or a certain shift. Your menus should correspond with the physical menus in your restaurant. If you have multiple menus you use throughout the day, you should have multiple menus in your Square for Restaurants account. Menu creation is the last step in completing the required setup steps for Square for Restaurants.
Before you begin
To create your Square menu from scratch, you'll require access to your Square Dashboard and Square Restaurants POS app.
A Display Group is a tool to help you organise how your menus appear on your Restaurants POS app. Display groups use colour, size, and placement options to keep your menu items organised for easy access in-app.
They function as subsections of your menu, like appetisers, wines, or desserts, and can be used across multiple menus. Display groups are separate from categories, allowing you to customise your menu layout without affecting your reporting or printer routing.
Build your menu manually
You can manually create a menu from your Square Dashboard or your Square Restaurants POS app.
- Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items > Menus.
- Click Create a Menu > Build your menu manually.
- Enter a menu name and select the location where the menu will apply. Click Save.
- Click Add Item to select existing items from the drop-down menu. Select Add Multiple Items to create new items and add them to the menu.
- When adding multiple items to your menu, enter an Item Name, a Kitchen Facing Name, and an Item Price. Click Create Items > Done.
- Click Add Modifiers to add existing modifiers from the drop-down menu.
- Click Add Display Group to organise how your menus appear on your Restaurants POS app.
- All selections will auto-save.
Before you begin, download the free Square Restaurants POS app, create a device code for your device, and log in to your Restaurants POS with your device code. Learn how to create a device code.
- Open your Restaurants POS and tap New Sale > Menus > Edit Menus > Create a Menu.
- Sign in to the menu editor with your Square Dashboard email and password.
- Enter a Menu name and select the location where the menu will apply.
- Tap Create a menu.
- Tap a plus icon (+) to add an item or display group. From the drop-down menu, select New Item, Existing Items, New Display Group, Existing Display Group, or Function.
- Enter an Item Name, Kitchen Name, Price, and Category. If you want to automatically add the item to a bill when selected, toggle on Automatically Add Item to cheque.
- Tap Save.
- Once you add all your items to your menu, tap Save.
Manage your menus
Once you've created a menu, you can complete additional actions. To do so:
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items > Menus.
Select the relevant Menu from the drop-down menu.
Click (•••) to Rename Menu, Edit Sales Taxes, Duplicate Menu, or Delete Menu.
Bulk edit your items
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items > Menus.
Choose the relevant menu from the drop-down menu and click Edit POS Layout.
Select the items and click Apply Modifiers or Remove from Menu.
Click Done Editing.
Edit your point of sale layout
Sign in to your Square Dashboard and click Items & orders > Items > Menus.
Click Edit items.
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Click on a tile to add an:
Item: Search existing items and click Add or click Create Item to add new items to the POS grid.
Display group: Select an existing display group and click Add or click Create Display Group.
Action: Choose from a list of POS actions such as assign bill, calculator, comp, custom quantity, dining options, seats, split, void.
Discounts: Tick the checkbox to relevant existing discounts, then click Add discount.
Service charges: Add quick access to all service charges, then click Add.
Once you've added items to your grid, can sort the tiles by Menu order, A - Z, Colour, Kind, or Colour and kind.
You can preview by Table Layout or Mobile Layout.
Click Save.