A printable restaurant menu maker, from the menu you already have
You already have a menu. It is a Word file, a PDF from a designer, a page on your website, or a sheet taped by the pass. In Gaslamp you pick one of eight designs made for your kind of place and type those dishes over its sample menu: sections, descriptions, prices, dietary tags. Add your logo and an accent color, and the print-ready PDF is ready to download.
The PDF is not a separate project. It comes out of the same menu that feeds your hosted QR menu. Change the short rib from 32 to 34 on your phone, and the next PDF you download already says 34. There is one menu, and the paper is one of the places it shows up.
- Pick a design. Any of the eight, switched as often as you like before you print.
- Type your menu in. Over the sample, once. After that you only change what changed, from your phone if you like.
- Download the PDF. Print it yourself, or send it to a print shop.
- Edit, then print again when you choose. Every version is kept, the last 50 of them, if you need to see what last month’s paper said.
Menu paper size: what fits and what does not
Every Gaslamp design prints on US Letter, 8½ by 11 inches, the paper already in your office printer. That is the size the layouts are drawn for. Here is how it behaves on the other sizes restaurants ask about.
| Paper | Size | How a Gaslamp PDF prints on it |
|---|---|---|
| Letter, portrait | 8½ × 11 in | Exactly as designed. Seven of the eight designs. |
| Letter, landscape | 11 × 8½ in | Exactly as designed for Elegant Landscape, the wide two-column design for wine bars and bistros. |
| Legal | 8½ × 14 in | Letter artwork on a longer sheet: the print shop centers it or leaves the extra at the foot. Ask for a proof. |
| Tabloid | 11 × 17 in | An enlargement of the Letter artwork. The text is vector and stays sharp; the margins depend on how the shop fits it, so ask for a proof. |
| Boards and large prints | Anything bigger | A print shop can enlarge the PDF for a truck side or a wall. Proof it at size first. |
A Gaslamp menu holds up to twelve sections of twenty items. Our sample menus run three or four Letter pages, cover included. If yours runs past the limit, split it: dinner and drinks as two menus, each with its own PDF and its own QR code.
Paper stock, lamination, and sleeves
This part is common trade practice, not a Gaslamp feature. The right answer depends on how long you want each print to live.
- Plain copy paper. For menus you reprint often: daily lists, weekly specials, a tasting menu that changes with the market. Cheap enough to recycle every night.
- Heavier cover or card stock. Holds up to more handling and feels like a menu in the hand. Most office printers take a light card; a print shop handles the heavy stuff.
- Lamination. Survives spills and can be wiped down, which is why diners and counters use it. The catch: a laminated menu is expensive to change, so it tends to stay on the table long after the prices are wrong. Glossy lamination also throws glare under pendant lights.
- Clear sleeves or menu covers. The middle road. The cover takes the abuse, and the Letter sheet inside is swapped whenever you print a new one. It suits a menu that comes from a PDF you can reprint in minutes.
Ask your printer for a quote on your stock and quantity. Prices vary too much by shop and run size for us to guess them here.
How often to reprint a restaurant menu
Reprint when the paper is wrong or worn, not on a calendar. For most restaurants that means a price increase, a seasonal changeover, or a dish that is gone for good. A struck-through price in pen tells the table the menu is behind the kitchen.
The old reason to put off a reprint was the file. Someone had to open the design, fix it, and export it, and that someone was often a designer you paid by the hour. With Gaslamp the file is always current, so a reprint is only a decision about paper: print ten for tonight, or a full run for the quarter. For the price side of that job, the price update guide goes through the order to change them in.
What goes on the paper and what stays on the phone
The PDF and the hosted menu share the same dishes, prices, dietary tags, logo, and design. Two things differ on purpose.
- Item photos appear on the hosted menu only. Pictures help on a phone screen. On paper they eat space and date fast, so the PDF leaves them out.
- Paper does not change after it is printed. Switch a dish off and phones stop showing it about thirty seconds after you save. The sheets on the tables still list it until you print new ones, which is why the QR menu is the copy that is always right.
Gaslamp also makes printable QR pieces from the same menu: a 4×6 table tent, a Letter window sign, and a 3×5 counter card. The code on them never changes, so they are printed once. See QR code menus.
What Gaslamp does not do
- Gaslamp does not print or ship. You get the PDF; you print it yourself or take it to any print shop.
- The PDF is laid out for US Letter. There is no built-in legal, tabloid, A4, or bi-fold layout.
- PDF downloads are a paid-plan feature. The 30-day trial lets you build the menu, publish one live menu, and get its QR code, but the PDF download is locked until you pick a plan.
- Prices from $1 to $9,999, with up to three labeled prices on one line (glass and bottle, half and full). Every line needs a number; there is no “MP”.
See the designs on paper first
Every design has a finished sample PDF you can download and print today, no signup: open the menu templates or look at all eight side by side on the samples page. Print one on your own printer and hold it at the table. That tells you more than any screen will. For how the designs differ and how to lay out a menu that reads fast, see restaurant menu design.