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!

This tutorial will cover how to embed your restaurant’s menu on your Facebook page.

This is how a SecondMenu looks on Facebook. Your visitors can like your page, or share your menu. Pretty cool!

Get a SecondMenu

First, you need a SecondMenu account. SecondMenu lets you easily transform your restaurant’s menu into a mobile app.  Once your SecondMenu is up and running, you are ready to embed your menu. (Sign up for SecondMenu Here)

Add the iFrame App to your Facebook Page

Facebook lets you have different tabs with different apps in each tab. To embed your menu, we just need to install an app that allows you to embed a URL. This is very simple to do so don’t worry if you don’t understand the terminology. Just follow along:

1.  Login to Facebook and in the search box type “static iframe”. This will bring up a list of apps.  The one we’re going to use is Static iFrame Tab by Woobox.

2.  Selecting Static iFrame Tab by Woobox will bring up the app’s page with information about it. Click Install Page Tab.

3.  Choose the page you want to install the app on. Here we’re installing it on our SecondMenu Facebook page, but you should select your restaurant’s Facebook page.

Adding Your SecondMenu URL

Woobox’s app has many configuration options. We’re just going to focus on a few, but you can explore them all yourself.

1.  Find the “Page Source” box about halfway down the page

2.  Select the button that says ‘URL’

3.  Enter your SecondMenu’s URL and add /embed to the end of it.  If your restaurant was called Groovy Grill and your SecondMenu URL was:  http://SecondMenu.com/groovygrill, then you would type:

 http://secondmenu.com/groovygrill/embed  into the box.

4.  The settings for the height should be 800px and Hide Scrollbars should be unchecked. If you have a large menu, this allows the embedded page to have scrollbars so your visitors can see all your items

That’s it!  Well… almost. There are a few design options you can change that will go a long way to making your embedded menu stand out.

Make Your Tab Look Great!

1. At the very top of the page, make sure to Enable Timeline Mode. This will make your menu’s visible area much larger

2.  Give your tab an image to let your visitors know your menu is on Facebook.

The standard WooFoo one is pretty boring so we’ve created a couple of options for you. Choose any of them, or make your own!

To download, just click the image and save it to your computer!

These icons have been customized to fit the exact dimensions Facebook requires (111px x 74px) and so they get you up and running that much faster!

3.  Upload the tab image

4.  Change the name of the tab from “Welcome” To “Our Menu” so that your visitors know they can see your menu by clicking the tab

Share Your Menu!

There are two ways you can spread your menu:

1) Woobox can add a “Share” button to the top of your menu which will allow visitors to share your menu on their Facebook news feed. You can customize the way this Share Story shows up by editing the Page Share Settings

2) Your Facebook tab has its own URL address.  You can share that wherever you want, including posting it as a Facebook update on your page. This can be in the form of an announcement to your Facebook fans to let them know they can now see your menu right inside Facebook!

Just copy and past your tab URL. It will look something like this:

You’re done!

That’s it!  Now you’ve got your menu inside Facebook so visitors can see what you’re cooking up! When you make changes to your SecondMenu, this page is automatically updated!  Wow!

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

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!

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

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.

See also : Sex, Figs, Italics: A Visual History of Menus

Toasting the end of a great year. Happy holidays to all!

Our brand new website even works on IE7! (Taken with instagram)