The problem
A big menu is hard to learn. Every dish has its own story, its own ingredients and quantities, its own way of being built on the plate and its own way of being served. In a busy kitchen, that knowledge usually lives in a few people's heads, a folder of printouts that's already out of date, and a lot of "watch me do it".
The restaurant consultant I worked with was bringing a whole team up to the same standard on a large menu. They needed three things:
- one place where every member of staff could look up exactly how any dish should be made and served
- a fair, consistent way to sign people off once they could do it
- a clear picture, for the managers, of who had been trained on what and who still needed help.
Paper couldn't do that, and the team needed it to work on the phones already in their pockets.
What I built
Every dish in your pocket. Staff open the app on their phone (each has their own QR code to get to it), browse the menu by section and tap into any dish. Each dish has four simple tabs:
- Story: what the dish is and the story behind it
- Build: what goes into it and how it comes together
- Service: how it's plated and served
- Sign-off: where a trainer confirms that person can do it properly.
A manager's view. Managers and trainers get a training grid showing every member of staff against the menu, so it's obvious at a glance where the gaps are. Sign-off records are kept, and there's a review screen for checking progress.
Proper sign-in. Each person has their own login, set up through an email link, and the app locks after too many wrong attempts. Training records matter, so I made sure they can't be signed off by just anyone.
One source of truth. The whole app, the print menu and the specification pack are all built from the same single file of dish information. When a dish changes, it changes everywhere, so the app, the menu on the table and the kitchen's paperwork never disagree.
A printed pack as well. Not everything happens on a phone. I also produced the restaurant's print menu and a full specification and sign-off pack with fillable fields, so trainers have a paper record to go alongside the app.
Listening to the team. Partway through, the consultant asked for a way for staff to send feedback about the app. I built a simple feedback form that only the consultant can read, and it went from request to live in four hours.
How it's going
The app is in use in the kitchen, and a team of 24 has been trained on every item on the menu. As the menu has grown and changed, the app has kept up with it, because every change starts in one place and flows through to everything else.
For the consultant, the biggest difference is visibility. Instead of chasing bits of paper, they can open the manager's view and see exactly where every member of the team stands. For the staff, it's simpler still: if you're not sure how a dish goes out, the answer is on your phone.
