SecondMenu

New feature: Auto-magically import a menu!

April 11, 2012 at 9:03 pm · Filed under Post ·Tagged features, import, Menu, PDF, restaurant, upload

We’ve just launched a fantastic feature we’re really excited about. The feedback from our customers over the past few weeks has been that most restaurants have their menu online in some unmaintainable form whether it be PDF, image, or standard HTML.

As simple as SecondMenu is to add existing menu items to the system, our biggest feature request was for a way to bring a restaurant’s existing online menu into the SecondMenu system where it can be updated, embedded into a Facebook page or website, and become a mobile app.

Well we’re happy to announce that SecondMenu now has an amazing, automatic import page that makes bringing your menu into the 21st century easier than ever!

Login, upload a menu…. that’s it! You don’t even have to wait around. We’ll send you an email once your menu has been imported.

Go ahead, give it a shot and let us know what you think!

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Putting it all together

March 16, 2012 at 9:02 pm · Filed under Photo

(Taken with instagram http://instagr.am/p/IP1TjACHcu/)

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Chalkboard Menu QR codes!

March 2, 2012 at 3:38 pm · Filed under Photo ·Tagged Cafe, Chalkboard, Menu, QR, restaurant

We know there are some crafty chalkboard artists out there! You can render Baskerville, Times New Roman and even Helvetica Neue in chalk perfection…but can you draw a scannable QR code in chalk??

Here is my quick Photoshop mock-up. Send us your photos of the real thing and we’ll add them to the SecondMenu blog!

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Two new films for Foodies!

February 19, 2012 at 9:50 pm · Filed under Photo

In the last couple of days I’ve had the pleasure of discovering two fantastic looking documentaries that should pique the interest of Foodies everywhere.

The first film, titled Hungry, is “a journey into the world of competitive eating”. It features world eating contest champion Takeru Kobayashi who among other things lays claim to eating:
69 hot dogs and buns in ten minutes, 97 hamburgers in ten minutes and 89 tacos in ten minutes.

Hungry is currently attempting to fund post-production via Kickstarter, so check out the trailer and if you like what you see you can even get a VIP invite to the premier of the film in New York or LA.

JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI is “the story of 85 year-old Jiro Ono, considered by many to be the world’s greatest sushi chef.” I watched the trailer for this yesterday and it looks absolutely delightful. Hitting up your favourite sushi restaurant and then checking out this film would be a fantastic way to spend an evening. Check out the trailer, but not on an empty stomach!

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Cod Roe Pasta Sauce – A Modest Proposal

January 25, 2012 at 9:42 pm · Filed under Photo

Around the world, fish roe is consumed as a delicious delicacy and a fantastic source of Omega 3. This commercial for Japanese cod roe pasta sauce is a bizarre and mildly terrifying homage to this tradition.

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How to Customize the @LaunchRock widget – A Behind The Scenes Look at Our Site

January 25, 2012 at 12:11 pm · Filed under Post

When we launched the new version of the SecondMenu site, we got in contact with the team at LaunchRock to let them know our experience using their service. LaunchRock generates a “Launching Soon” page for startups complete with invite form, analytics, and viral marketing capabilities. The site is super easy to use and gives you that great “huge image plus sign-up form” landing page that I’m sure you’ve seen around. Instead of going that route, we decided that we wanted a hand-crafted site and so we chose to use the service a little differently than usual. As you can see, LaunchRock is still helping us on our site, but their invite widget has been styled to fit with the look and feel of the site.

We were invited to write a guest post on LaunchRock’s blog about our experience integrating their widget and we of course said yes. So, here’s our post which provides a step-by-step guide on how you can use HTML, CSS, and a little bit of savvy, to rock your own LaunchRock widget: Customize The LaunchRock Widget To Seamlessly Match Your Site

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Appetite for art: over one hundred years of menu graphics

January 16, 2012 at 10:50 pm · Filed under Post

The menu is often the first thing we interact with at a restaurant. We’re either quickly perusing it in window as we pass by a restaurant, or we’re given it immediately when sit we down. It turns out that menus were not always common, and like everything else have an evolution.

Until restaurants became commonplace in the late 1800s, printed menus for meals were rare commodities reserved for special occasions. As restaurants proliferated, the menu became more than just a culinary listing. The design of the menu became an integral part of eating out and as such menus became a marketing tool and a favored keepsake.

The history of menu design has now been collected in gorgeous detail in Steven Heller’s book Menu Design in America: 1850-1985. There are tons of great images in here and though some menus are a bit outlandish, they all have a certain charm that will definitely inspire us to create digital menus that are equally emotive and fresh.