Toast Websites Menu Builder

Helping Restaurants Put Their Best Menu Forward

Toast’s new Menu Builder enables restaurant operators to design custom digital menus with pre-built layouts and real-time syncing with the POS system. Early feedback shows it will save time, improve menu management, and enhance branding.

Role

Lead Designer

team

Product, Research, Engineering

Scope

Product strategy & end-to-end design

The Problem

Restaurants keep accurate menu data in the POS, but online menus often look generic and drift out of sync across channels. Updating means touching the same content in multiple places, which slows teams down, hurts trust, and dilutes the brand.
‍Design challenge: Make “one source of truth” menus easy to compose and publish so every surface matches the restaurant’s identity and stays consistent. This supports the Websites goals of single setup, brand-first theming, and reliable updates.

User Testing & Research Insights

I began the design process by conducting customer research—interviewing 10 restaurant operators and analyzing their feedback to uncover the key challenges they faced with their online menus. The main pain points included:

Inconsistent Menu Versions

8 out of 10

9 out of 10

90%

Restaurant operators expressed frustration with managing multiple versions of their menu across their website, third-party ordering platforms, and in-store displays.

Emphasized the need for a unified solution to ensure that their branding remains consistent across all customer touchpoints.

Mentioned that these inconsistencies not only confused customers but also undermined their brand identity.

"It’s a nightmare to update menus in different places... One version here, another there. My brand suffers from the inconsistency."

Branding & Aesthetic Limitations

6 out of 10

8 out of 10

100%

Noted that the default online ordering menu was too uniform, lacking the aesthetic appeal needed to reflect their brand identity.

Indicated they would be more inclined to adopt a platform that allowed for robust customization.

Felt that a non-customizable design negatively impacted the perceived quality of their brand.

"Our brand has a unique style, but the online ordering menu looks generic everywhere. I need more creative control to reflect my identity in my menu."

Key Features

Pre-designed Layout Families: Bistro, Casual, Modern Card, Photo-forward. Tuned for mobile reading and print-like rhythm.
Component Model: Category list, item card, price group, modifier set, dietary tags, photo gallery. All bound to POS fields.
Brand Inheritance: Type, color, imagery from the shared Brand Kit with sensible overrides when needed.
Ease of Use & WYSIWYG: Drag-and-drop interface for customizing layouts, making it simple for operators to create visually appealing menus without needing technical design expertise. Instant previews, safe drafts, staging links, and light automated checks for contrast, missing prices, and broken images.
Thematic Flexibility: While menus inherit the Website theme, users can override styles for deeper customization.
Best Practices & Design Guidance: Built-in recommendations help restaurant owners make informed design choices that enhance usability and branding.
Seamless POS Integration & Multi-location controls: Menu updates made in the POS automatically reflect on the digital menu, reducing manual work. Share a layout across locations, swap photos or prices based on the POS data behind the scenes.

Design System Alignment

Tokens: Typography, color, spacing, and shadow tokens shared with Websites.
Patterns: Section headers, card lists, filter chips, and CTA placement mirror Website pages for familiarity.
Accessibility rules: 16px+ body, contrast ≥ 4.5:1, readable price ladders, keyboard navigation, alt-text templates for images.
Empty and error states: Guidance when an item is missing a price or photo, with shortcuts back to the right POS field.

With these insights, I started by designing guest-facing menu layouts that prioritized visual appeal and adaptability. This helped me define the core components—such as menu lists, item cards, pricing structures, and category sections—that were essential for a cohesive and dynamic menu experience. Each component was built with full customization controls, allowing users to adjust layouts, borders, background colors, fonts, and more. This approach enabled restaurant owners not only to override the default website theme when needed but also to receive best-practice guidance, ensuring that their menus remained both on-brand and user-friendly.

Throughout the process, continuous usability testing helped refine the editor experience, ensuring that restaurant operators could create and manage professional, visually consistent menus that accurately reflected their brand across all platforms.

Impact on Toast Websites

Single source of truth, fewer edits, fewer tickets
Modeled to reduce menu-change tickets 15–25% by removing duplicate work and catching errors earlier.
Brand-first menus, higher perceived quality
Consistent type and color raise brand fit and trust; menus read well on mobile, which improves conversion paths.
Faster publishing, faster time to live
First menu page under 15 minutes for new sites; seasonal updates under 5 minutes.
Structured content, better discovery
Menu schema supports rich search results and cleaner internal linking from Website pages.
Suite cohesion, clearer guest journey
Seamless handoff from Website menu to Ordering to mobile quick reorder.

What we'll measure at launch

Time to publish, error rate at publish, brand-fit rating, support ticket volume for menu changes, menu page engagement, add-to-cart starts from menu views.