Barcode for restaurant menu: what to print and where

A barcode for restaurant menu use is almost never a barcode. It is a QR code, the square one, and the two are built for different jobs. Scan menu barcode explains that difference properly.

This article assumes you already know you want the square. It covers the part that goes wrong afterwards: what sits behind it, how to print it so it reads first time, and where to put it in a Kuwaiti restaurant so people actually use it.

Why Kuwait is an easy place to do this

You are not asking customers to do something unfamiliar. At the start of 2025 there were 4.94 million people online in Kuwait, an online penetration of 99.0 percent, with 7.78 million cellular connections at 156 percent of the population and 3.99 million social media identities at 80.1 percent.

The phone is not the obstacle. The obstacle is what happens in the four seconds after the camera focuses.

What belongs behind the square

Three things are commonly put behind a menu code, and only one of them earns the printing cost.

A photo of the paper menu. It works and it is awful. Text is unreadable until pinched, prices go out of date, and nothing can be ordered.

A PDF. Slightly better, still a document. It downloads, it opens in a separate viewer, and it forgets the customer instantly.

An ordering page. The menu is a web page, and the customer can order from it. That is what turns the square from decoration into a working part of the restaurant.

If the square only shows food, you have printed a sign. A digital menu is worth the ink when it also takes the order.

Printing so it reads first time

The square fails for boring physical reasons, and every one of them is avoidable.

Size. As a working rule, print it about a tenth of the distance a customer stands from it. A code on a window read from three metres has to be far bigger than one on a table.

Contrast. Dark square on a light background. A dark code on a dark wood card looks handsome and scans badly.

The quiet space around it. Leave a clear margin on all four sides. Text pushed against the edge of a code is a common cause of failure.

Where the damage will be. Denso Wave, which developed the format, lists dirt and damage resistance and readability from any direction in 360 degrees among the QR code's features, noting it can correct itself and restore the original data when partly smeared or damaged. That is generous, not infinite. A code on a table gets oil on it, so laminate or replace it.

Test on a cheap phone. Not yours. Borrow the oldest handset in the kitchen and scan from where a customer will really stand.

Where to put it, and how many

On the table. One per table, and the code should tell the kitchen which table it was. That single detail removes the walk over to ask.

In the window. For people looking in after closing, and for delivery customers standing outside.

On the bag and the box. The best moment to win a second order is while the first one is being eaten.

On the receipt or invoice. Cheap, and it reaches everyone who already paid you.

In your social profile. A link rather than a printed square, pointing at the same page.

What we do behind the square

Get Menu exists to make the page behind the code worth scanning.

Your own address. The menu lives on an address that belongs to your restaurant, with 12 page layouts and a photo style toggle so a short menu and a long one both read well on a phone.

A code for every table, generated for you. A designer sets the colours and logo so the printed card matches your brand, and a print pack is emailed to you ready for the printer. The table is the address, so nothing has to be typed.

Group ordering into one bill. Everyone at the table orders from their own phone and the kitchen receives one ticket.

The order reaches your team in seconds. A confirmation to the customer, a ticket to the managers group and a rider dispatch carrying the GPS pin dropped at checkout, all inside about 2 seconds.

Arabic item names and descriptions, because a menu in Kuwait that only speaks English is only half printed.

Prices that cannot drift. Every line is priced again from your live menu at checkout, so a laminated card can never sell an old price. Options and add-ons carry their own prices, and required choices stop half-made orders.

Stock that answers for itself. Counts fall per item and per option as orders arrive, and a dish greys itself out at zero rather than being sold and then apologised for.

A reason to scan again. Loyalty stamps and tiers your regulars grow into, with the card kept in Google Wallet and updating itself. Rewards for scanning again on the next visit are built in.

Offers with limits. Coupons carrying caps, exclusions and expiry dates, upsells that suggest the right pairing, and bundles at a fixed price.

Paperwork. Tax invoices carrying your registration number, as a PDF the customer downloads without logging in, plus a sales dashboard by day and item.

Get Menu charges a flat monthly price and takes 0% of what you sell.

The square is the cheapest part of the whole thing. What decides whether a restaurant keeps using it is whether the address behind it belongs to them, because the day it points somewhere they do not control, every card they printed belongs to somebody else. — Tanzeel ur Rehman, co-founder of Get Menu

What it will not fix

There are no online payments. Payment happens at the table or at the door, in cash or on your own machine, which is also why the system holds no card details.

It does not print the cards for you at your local shop. It gives you the artwork and the print pack.

There is no scheduled ordering, no pre-order and no collection order type, so a scan is an order for now.

And a code cannot rescue a menu that is confusing on paper. Fix the wording first, then print it.

A one-week plan

Put codes on the tables only, and nowhere else, for one week. Watch how many orders arrive through them.

Then add the window and the bags in week two, so you can tell which placement actually earned its space. A QR code menu covers the rest of the setup.

The trial runs 15 days without card details, which covers both weeks with real orders in them.

Frequently asked questions

Is a menu barcode the same as a QR code?

In everyday speech, yes. A restaurant menu barcode is nearly always a QR code, the square one, because it holds a web address. A shop barcode holds a product number and cannot carry a link.

How big should the code be on a table card?

Roughly a tenth of the distance it will be read from. For a table card that usually means about three to four centimetres across, printed dark on light with a clear margin around it.

Can customers pay online?

No. Payment is cash or your own card machine at the table or the door, so no card details are held anywhere.

Does each table need its own code?

It does if you want the ticket to say which table ordered. One shared code shows the menu but leaves your staff asking where the food is going.

What happens to old order details?

They clear automatically after 120 days, while your customer list stays yours and can be exported whenever you want it.