25 Types of Menus in Restaurants (With Examples)
Restaurant menus are grouped three ways: by how items are priced and sold, by how the menu is shown to guests, and by who the menu is for.
The five formats every operator should know are à la carte, table d'hôte, prix fixe, du jour, and cycle — and they differ in one thing: how much choice the guest gets for the price.
Most restaurants run four or five menu types at once: a main à la carte menu, a drinks list, a dessert menu, a daily specials board, and a digital version guests can order from.
The five core menu types
Menu type | What the guest chooses | How it's priced | Kitchen load | Typically used by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
À la carte | Every dish, individually | Each item priced separately | High — cooked to order | Casual dining, bistros, fine dining |
Table d'hôte | One option per course, from a short list | One set price, sometimes varying with the main | Medium — prepped ahead | Hotels, banquets, set-lunch service |
Prix fixe | Little or nothing — the kitchen sets the sequence | One price, fixed course count | Low — fully predictable | Fine dining, holidays, ticketed events |
Du jour | From a short list that changes daily | Per item, priced day by day | Variable — depends on the delivery | Bistros, gastropubs, seafood, farm-to-table |
Cycle | From whichever menu runs that day | Fixed or contract-priced | Low — forecastable | Cafeterias, schools, hospitals, canteens |
The gap between these five is a pricing decision before it is a culinary one. À la carte puts the risk on you — you carry inventory for every combination a guest might order. Prix fixe puts the certainty back in the kitchen at the cost of guest choice.
If you are still working out what to charge, start with the menu pricing formula and let the format follow the numbers.
Menu types by how items are sold
1. À la carte menu
An à la carte menu prices every dish separately, so guests build their own meal. Maximum choice for them, maximum inventory risk for you — you carry stock for every combination somebody might order.
Because each item stands alone, wording does the selling. This is the format where menu descriptions show up in the average check.
Example: sea bass $28, mushroom risotto $21, Caesar salad $14 — ordered in any combination.
Ideal for: casual dining, bistros, fine dining, cafés.
2. Table d'hôte menu
A table d'hôte menu is a complete meal sold at one set price, where the guest picks one option per course from a short list. The name is French for "the host's table."
The difference from a prix fixe menu is who chooses. On a table d'hôte, the guest picks the starter, the main, and the dessert from two or three options each. On a prix fixe, the kitchen decides the whole sequence.
Some table d'hôte menus move the price with the main course — a fish main at one price, a steak main at another — which is why you sometimes see two or three prices on the same card.
For the kitchen, it is the easiest full-service format to run: you know roughly how many covers of each dish you need, you prep ahead, waste is predictable — and for the guest it reads as value.
Example: soup or terrine, chicken or gnocchi, tart or ice cream — all in at £32.
Ideal for: hotel dining rooms, banquets and weddings, set-lunch service, event catering.
3. Prix fixe menu (fixed-price menu)
A prix fixe menu — also called a fixed-price menu or simply a fixed menu — offers a set number of courses for one price, with the kitchen setting the sequence. Where a table d'hôte gives a short choice on each course, a prix fixe usually gives none.
It is the most predictable format there is: you buy for a known number of covers and your food cost per head is fixed before service starts. The trade-off is that a guest who does not want one of the courses has nowhere to go. We break down what a prix fixe menu involves separately.
Example: one four-course Valentine's sequence at $85 a head, no substitutions.
Ideal for: fine dining, holidays and ticketed events, restaurant weeks.
4. Tasting menu
A tasting menu is a long sequence of small courses chosen by the chef and sold as one experience at one price. Portions shrink as the course count grows, so guests can finish them all.
It's the most demanding format to run and the least forgiving of a weak pass — which is why it belongs to kitchens with the brigade to support it, and why it is the clearest expression of what fine dining service is selling.
Ideal for: fine dining, chef-driven restaurants, special occasions.
5. Du jour menu (daily menu)
A du jour menu changes every day, built around whatever came in that morning and whatever needs using. It is usually spoken by the server or chalked on a board. A single dish presented this way is a plat du jour.
The commercial value is waste control: ingredients near the end of their life become today's special instead of tomorrow's write-off, and you can react to market prices without reprinting anything.
Example: "Grilled catch of the day with citrus salad — market price.
Ideal for: bistros, gastropubs, seafood restaurants, farm-to-table kitchens.
6. Cycle menu
A cycle menu is a set of menus that rotate on a schedule — weekly, fortnightly or monthly — then repeat.
Guests get variety, and you get procurement you can forecast, because you know what week three needs before week one begins. It is the standard format wherever the same people eat with you every day.
Example: pasta Mondays, tacos Tuesdays, roast chicken Wednesdays, repeating every four weeks.
Ideal for: cafeterias, schools, hospitals, staff restaurants, institutional catering.
7. Static menu
A static menu stays the same all year, changing only when you decide to. Consistency is the point: prep routines settle, and inventory becomes predictable.
Most fast-food and quick-service brands run this format because a limited, unchanging set of dishes keeps prep times and combo pricing identical across every location.
Ideal for: fast food, quick service, diners, multi-location brands.
8. Seasonal menu
A seasonal menu is built around what is in season and runs for a defined window — usually six to twelve weeks — before being replaced. It sits between a static menu and a du jour menu: more stable than a daily list, more responsive than a year-round card.
The argument is margin. Produce at peak season costs less and needs less work, so the same plate price carries a better food cost. It also gives regulars a reason to come back.
Ideal for: farm-to-table restaurants, bistros, restaurants with a strong regular base, and anywhere produce costs swing hard between seasons.
9. Buffet menu
A buffet menu lists what is on the line rather than what a guest can order. Because the guest serves themselves, the menu's job changes: instead of prompting a choice, it labels the stations, flags allergens, and sets the price of entry.
Pricing is usually flat per head, sometimes tiered by service period. Portion control moves from the kitchen to the guest, so the economics rest entirely on what goes at the start of the line and what goes at the end.
Ideal for: hotel breakfast, weekend brunch, corporate catering, high-volume lunch trade.
Menu types by how the menu is displayed
Display format | Best for | How diners react | Cost pattern | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Printed menu in a cover | Dine-in, full service | Strongly preferred at the table | Reprint on every price move | Goes stale between print runs |
QR code menu | Table ordering, drink re-orders, payment | Mixed at the table, better off-premise | Near-zero to update | Older guests, dark rooms, weak signal |
Online/app menu | Delivery, pickup, pre-order, regulars | Expected; highest repeat-order behavior | Platform cost, no print cost | Must mirror the in-house menu |
Menu board/screen | Counter service, drive-thru | Fast and scannable | Print vs screen trade-off | Calorie rules apply |
Table tent | Specials and upsell | Low friction, easy to ignore | Cheap | Clutter |
Sandwich board | Capturing footfall | Works on the street | Cheap | Weather, local permits |
Disposable menu | High turnover, hygiene | Neutral | Per-cover cost adds up | Paper waste |
10. Printed menu (in menu covers)
A printed menu is the physical card handed to a guest, usually held in a cover that protects it and lets you swap pages without a full reprint. Menu holders and racks do the same job for menus guests pick up themselves.
The real cost isn't paper; it is the reprint cycle—which is why most operators design around a stable core with an insert page for anything that moves. Our ready-made menu templates save you a designer brief, and there are 50 more restaurant menu design ideas worth borrowing from.
11. QR code menu
A QR code menu is a digital menu guests open by scanning a code—at the table, on the packaging, or in the window. It updates instantly and costs nothing to change, which is why it works for price moves, sold-out items, and rotating taps.
The catch is where you use it. A Technomic survey of 1,000 US diners found 88% prefer a paper menu at a sit-down table, and the preference held across every generation — 86% of Gen Z, 95% of boomers. The complaints were specific: 66% did not want to reach for a phone the moment they sat down, and 55% found QR menus hard to read.
Off-premise, the picture flips. PYMNTS Intelligence, with Paytronix, surveyed around 2,400 US consumers and found 51% of grab-and-go customers rated a QR menu positively, compared with 26% of dine-in customers.
The operating rule: QR wins at the counter and off-premise, and loses at the table. Run it alongside a printed menu, not instead of one, and put the code where it earns its keep — on the check, on takeaway packaging, on the bar for drink re-orders.
12. Online menu
An online menu is the version guests order from directly — on your own website, or inside your own app. It is the only menu format where you can measure what the format itself does to behavior.
UpMenu looked at 72,468 customers across 1,337 restaurants in 69 countries, comparing the same customer before and after they started ordering through the restaurant's own app rather than only its website. After a year, those customers ordered 87% more often, spent 129% more, and put 14% more in each basket — and the effect built rather than faded: +41% after a quarter, +65% after six months, +87% after a year.
So treat the online menu as a format in its own right, not a copy of the printed one, and keep every version in sync from one place—a price that moved on the card but not online is a chargeback waiting to happen. That is what menu management software exists to prevent.
13. Menu board
A menu board is a large display above the counter or at the drive-thru, showing the whole offer at a glance so the queue keeps moving. It comes as a chalkboard, a printed panel, or a screen.
Screens earn their cost if anything changes: digital menu boards switch from breakfast to lunch at a set time, pull a sold-out item mid-service, and run different content across sites from one dashboard.
14. Table tent (displayette)
A table tent is a small freestanding card carrying one message — a special, an event, a dessert prompt. It is the cheapest upsell surface you own and the one most often wasted. One per table works; three plus a QR stand turn the table into a leaflet drop.
15. Sandwich board
A sandwich board is the folding sign on the pavement outside — the cheapest way to convert footfall you already have. It works best with one legible offer rather than the whole menu.
Check local rules first: many city centers restrict pavement signage by width, placement, or hours.
16. Disposable menu
A disposable menu is a single-use printed sheet, thrown away after each cover. It removes the cleaning step entirely and lets you change content daily. The economics only work at volume or at low page counts — per-cover printing adds up fast.
Menu types by audience and occasion
The third way to split menus is by who is reading them. These are not competing formats — most sit alongside your main card, and the only real question is when a group of dishes has earned a menu of its own.
The trigger is usually a different price logic, a different service period, or a legal reason to keep the information separate. If what you need is help organizing sections within one menu, see how many categories a menu should have.
Menu | What's on it | Split it out when |
|---|---|---|
| Starters, mains, sides | Always — this is the card everything else hangs off |
| Smaller portions, simpler dishes | You seat families regularly, and main-card portions do not work for under-tens |
| Bottles and glasses by style or region | Your list passes roughly 15 references, or wine carries a margin worth defending |
| Cocktails, beer, soft drinks, coffee | Drinks are a profit center, or the list rotates faster than the food |
| Sweets, dessert wines, after-dinner coffee | You want a second decision at the table — a card handed over after mains outsells a line at the bottom of the main card |
| Dishes meeting one dietary requirement | Servers answer the same question all night. "Gluten-free" carries a legal meaning — do not use it loosely |
| Dishes tied to a service period | The kitchen runs a different prep for those hours |
| The subset of dishes that travel well | Not everything survives 20 minutes in a box, and the ones that do not cost you reviews |
| Platters, per-head packages | You sell off-site, where pricing is per head and quantities are agreed in advance |
Which menu types trigger US calorie labeling rules
If your business is part of a chain of 20 or more locations trading under the same name and offering substantially the same items, the FDA menu labeling rule (21 CFR 101.11) decides which of your menus need calorie counts. The rule follows the menu, not the restaurant.
The FDA defines a menu as the primary writing a guest uses to make an order selection — which is broader than most operators assume.
Covered menus also need a line stating that 2,000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice, plus a note that full nutrition information is available on request. Independents under 20 locations are not covered, though they can register with the FDA every other year to opt in.
The practical read: a du jour board and a six-week seasonal menu give you flexibility without triggering the labeling work. A static menu and a buffet line do not.
How to choose the menu types for your restaurant
Nobody picks one menu type. The question is which combination, and the shortest way to answer it is three filters in order.
1. Start with your service format
A quick-service restaurant needs a static menu on a board and an online ordering menu, and almost nothing else.
A fine dining room needs a tasting or prix fixe menu plus a serious wine list, because that is what guests are paying for.
Casual dining sits in between. If you are still deciding what kind of restaurant you are opening, sort those types of restaurants and set a default menu.
2. Match the format to the occasion, not the guest
The same person wants a printed card at dinner and a phone screen when collecting a bag at the counter. That is why the QR-versus-paper argument goes in circles: both sides are right about different moments.
3. Count what a change costs you
A static card in covers costs a print run every time you move a price. A du jour board costs nothing to change but costs a conversation with every table.
A digital menu costs nothing per change, but only if it feeds every channel from one place. That edit cost decides whether a seasonal menu is realistic or a quarterly headache — worth running the numbers first, the same way you would with menu engineering.
A working default for most independents: an à la carte main menu, a drinks list, a dessert card, a specials board that changes daily or weekly, and an online ordering menu that mirrors the main card exactly. Five formats, one source of truth. When you are ready to build them, here is the process for creating a restaurant menu from scratch.
Frequently Asked Questions
Four or five is normal for an independent. Fewer than three usually means you are leaving a sale on the table; more than six usually means somebody is maintaining a menu nobody reads.
A static menu on a board above the counter, mirrored by an online ordering menu and a drive-thru board. The format is chosen for consistency — the same items at the same prices everywhere is what makes centralized prep and national advertising work.
A static menu is static in the sense that it does not rotate on a schedule, not that it never changes. Most operators review pricing quarterly and the dish list once or twice a year. If you have not touched yours in two years, your food cost has moved without you.
About the author
Marketing Manager at UpMenu
Leads UpMenu's marketing and helps restaurants grow. Writes about restaurant marketing, branding, websites, menu design, and opening a restaurant — from pizzerias and food trucks to coffee shops and ghost kitchens. Digital marketer driven by data and AI — for 6+ years working with restaurants.