Menu management
Categories, items, modifiers, imagery, and service metadata.
The menu layer is one of the stronger parts of Openfront Restaurant already. The data model is flexible enough for a real restaurant menu, and the admin screens make that model usable instead of hiding it behind raw CRUD.
What a menu item can carry
A MenuItem can already include:
- price in cents
- rich description content
- images
- availability
- featured and popular flags
- prep time
- calorie count
- kitchen station
- allergen tags
- dietary flags
- meal-period tags
- a category link
- one or more modifiers
That is enough to drive both the storefront and the kitchen-facing workflow.
Modifiers are first-class data
Modifier groups already support:
- required or optional selection
- min and max selections
- default-selected values
- price adjustments
- group labels like "Choose your side" or "Add-ons"
That makes them useful for both guest ordering and staff-assisted ordering.
How to build the menu
Create categories
Start with MenuCategory records. These control menu structure, sorting, and meal-period tagging.
Add the items
Create MenuItem records with pricing, imagery, availability, station routing, and customer-facing details.
Attach modifiers
Use MenuItemModifier records to define sizes, toppings, sides, sauces, removals, temperatures, and similar choice sets.
Publish through the same data layer
The storefront, POS, and KDS all read from the same underlying menu records. You are not maintaining three different menus.
What the current menu tooling is good at
- one shared menu for guest and staff surfaces
- clean category sorting
- item imagery and featured sections on the storefront
- availability control for sold-out items
- dietary and allergen tagging
- kitchen station routing from the item record
- modifier pricing and validation rules
What is present but not fully matured yet
Meal periods are already modeled and filterable through the API, but the platform is not yet doing a deeply automated schedule-driven menu swap by itself. The fields are there. The last mile still depends on how far you want to take it.
If you only have time for one careful setup pass before launch, spend it here. A clean menu model pays off everywhere else in the restaurant.