Digital menu boards for restaurants: step-by-step setup guide 👉
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From a blank screen to a working digital menu board: templates, prices, dayparting and multi-screen layouts in Look DS, step by step.
🖥️ Digital Menu Board Software
Digital Menu Boards for Restaurants
A price moves, an item sells out – and the board has to be reprinted? Not with Look DS. Edit the menu in a browser and publish it to one screen or to every location at once, with templates, dayparting and offline playback on hardware you already own.
Update a price without reprinting
Change the item in the browser, hit publish, and every board carries the new price.
Menus that change by time of day
Breakfast, lunch and dinner swap on a schedule, each location on its own time zone.
Screens keep playing offline
Cached images and video carry on when the line to a drive-thru lane drops.
No credit card required. From $6 per screen/month with volume pricing.
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Runs on Android, Windows, Linux, Tizen, webOS, Raspberry Pi and more.
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Keep every menu board current from one place
Digital menu board software lets restaurants, cafés, bars, and QSRs run menus, prices, and promotions on connected screens and update them from one cloud CMS across a single counter or every location in the group.
No other signage changes as often as a menu. A price moves. An item sells out. Breakfast ends at 10:30. In Look each of those is content you edit in a browser and schedule once, rather than a print job to reorder.
No other signage changes as often as a menu. A price moves. An item sells out. Breakfast ends at 10:30. In Look each of those is content you edit in a browser and schedule once, rather than a print job to reorder.
Sound familiar?
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A reprint for every single change
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Prices on screen no longer match the till
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Sold-out items still up on the board
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A different menu at every location
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What you get with Look
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One edit, every menu board
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Dayparts that switch by themselves
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Menus that keep playing when Wi-Fi drops
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Templates in place of a design brief
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Try with demo screen now
Run demo screen right in your browser
From one counter board to the whole chain
Pair a screen, build the menu from a template, and the board is live. Every other counter, lane, and location follows the same three steps.
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Connect the screen
Install the Look App on a compatible display or plug in the Look HDMI Player, then pair it with the 6-digit code the screen shows. -
Build the menu and set the dayparts
Start from a food and beverage template, edit items and prices in the browser, then schedule breakfast, lunch, and dinner as time slots. -
Publish to one board or all of them
From any browser, push the change to a single screen, a tagged group or every location – and give a campaign an end date so it retires itself.
Digital menu boards for every part of the counter
A drive-thru lane, a counter menu and a dine-in table each need something different from a screen. Look runs them from one account, so the main board, the upsell screen and the order-status display each keep their own content and schedule.
Main menu boards
The core menu, always matching the till.
The main board is what most guests read before they order, so it carries the full menu – items, prices, photos, categories. Build it from a food and beverage template and it comes out sized for portrait or landscape without a redesign.
A price change or a sold-out item is an edit and a publish, not a reprint, and Smart Scheduling swaps the whole board between breakfast, lunch, and dinner on its own.
Best for: Full menu display, pricing, daypart switching, category layouts
Drive-thru lanes
Readable at a glance, from a moving car.
A lane board gets a few seconds of attention, so fewer items and larger type read better than the full indoor menu. Combo callouts and limited-time offers belong here, where they can move someone toward a bigger order before they reach the window.
Lane connectivity is not always reliable, so offline playback matters here more than almost anywhere else in the store – cached content keeps the board up even if the connection drops mid-shift.
Best for: Combo callouts, limited-time offers, simplified pricing, offline-first content
Counter and register upsell screens
Suggest the add-on while the order is still open.
A small screen behind or beside the register is the place for what a guest might add before paying – a dessert, a size upgrade, a drink they didn't order yet. It runs apart from the main board, so it can rotate offers more often without disturbing the core menu.
Screen Layouts can split it further – an upsell zone next to a loyalty message or a QR code for the app, all on the same small display.
Best for: Add-on suggestions, combo upgrades, loyalty promotion, QR codes to the app
Digital table cards and dine-in displays
Give a seated guest something beyond a paper insert.
A small screen on or near the table can hold specials, a QR code to the full menu, or a short loop of dishes the kitchen wants to move. It is content, not an ordering system – guests still order the way they already do in that restaurant.
Multi-user roles keep this manageable in a franchise: a location can run its own daily special without an approval step for every change.
Best for: Daily specials, QR to the full menu, kitchen-driven promotion
Order status and pickup screens
Show guests where their order stands.
Where a screen displays order numbers or pickup status, that data comes from a POS or kitchen display system connected through Zapier, an action trigger, or Embeddable Code – Look does not track orders on its own. Once wired in, the same screen can carry a promotion in a side zone while the status list runs in the main area.
Because it is a Screen Layout, the promotional content is scheduled and swapped independently of the status feed.
Best for: Order status feeds, pickup numbers, side-zone promotion
Back-of-house and staff screens
Keep the team on the same page without a meeting.
A break room or kitchen screen can carry shift schedules, prep checklists, food-safety reminders, or recognition for the crew – content that has nothing to do with what guests see out front. It runs on a separate playlist, tagged to that screen alone.
Roles keep this simple too: a shift lead can update the board for their location without touching menu content anywhere else in the chain.
Best for: Shift schedules, prep checklists, food-safety reminders, staff recognition
To use Look digital signage software
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Plug Look HDMI Player
Connect the Plug & Play Look Player to your display’s HDMI input for instant setup. Worldwide shipping.
What our customers say
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We have 22 locations and zero issues with Look software. It’s so easy to use and has a lot of useful tools that we utilize in our day-to-day business. All-in-all, our experience was top-notch.
Ervin Piotrowski
We tried many different solutions for our platform. After many trials and errors, we found Look Digital Signage to be an amazing tool for our purposes.
Pyry Salminen
I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with Look and it's been a really big game changer for us, because it has helped us to come across as an older business in a much more fresh way.
Michael Guzman
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Key features
What should you look for in digital menu board software?
A menu changes more often than any other kind of signage – prices, sold-out items, dayparts, seasonal specials. The platform needs to make that fast to edit, reliable when the connection drops, and simple enough that a manager can run it without a designer.
For restaurants and QSRs, these are the core capabilities to look for:
Ready-made templates
Start from a food and beverage layout instead of a blank canvas – percentage sizing keeps it right in portrait or landscape.
Smart Scheduling
Switch between breakfast, lunch and dinner automatically, each screen in its own time zone, with no one touching the board.
Offline Playback
Cached images and video keep the board running through a drive-thru lane outage – it syncs again once the line returns.
Content Creator
Edit items, prices and photos straight in the browser, and a shared brand kit keeps fonts and logos the same on every board.
Screen Layouts
Split one board into zones so the menu, a limited-time offer and a ticker share the screen instead of taking turns.
Third-party integration
Wire signage to a POS or kitchen system through Zapier, an action trigger, outbound webhooks, or Embeddable Code.
Device compatibility
Use existing displays instead of a hardware refresh – the Look App covers most smart TVs and players, and the HDMI Player covers the rest.
Multi-user & SSO
Administrator, Moderator and Guest roles with per-section permissions let a location manage its own specials without touching the rest of the chain.
Free templates
Menu board templates for every daypart
Set your brand colors and fonts once and every template inherits them. The food and beverage collection covers what a menu board actually needs – combo deals, drink menus, daily specials, steakhouse and BBQ boards, sandwich shops. Drop in your items and prices, schedule it, publish. No design brief, no reprint, no version of the menu nobody can find.
Explore digital menu boards digital signage
Pick the setting closest to yours, or look at a nearby industry.
Tips & Guides
Digital menu board resources
Frequently asked questions about digital menu boards
What is a digital menu board?
A digital menu board is a screen showing a restaurant's menu, prices and promotions from digital signage software, in place of a printed or backlit panel. A media player attached to the display pulls the content from a cloud CMS, so items, prices and images get edited in a browser and appear on screen with nothing reprinted. And because the content is scheduled, one board runs a breakfast menu in the morning and a dinner menu at night.
How much do digital menu boards cost?
Look DS sells per-screen plans, with volume pricing as the screen count grows, and an on-premises option under a one-time lifetime license. What software and hardware cost depends on the setup – you need a display plus either the free Look App on a compatible device or a Look HDMI Player. There's a free trial with no credit card, so a single counter board can be piloted before the whole group follows.
Can I use a regular TV as a digital menu board?
Yes. Any screen with an HDMI input will do: plug in the Look HDMI Player, put it on Wi-Fi, and pair it with the 6-digit code the screen shows. Where the display is a smart TV on a supported operating system, install the free Look App and skip the player. Indoors above a counter, a consumer TV is fine. Drive-thru lanes, windows and other bright or outdoor positions call for a commercial display built for that brightness and those running hours.
Which displays, players, and operating systems does Look support?
Look runs on Android, Windows, Linux, LG webOS, Amazon Signage, Fire OS, and macOS through the free Look App, and Samsung Tizen. If a screen runs none of those, the Look HDMI Player plugs into its HDMI input and does the work instead. In practice, that means you can build a menu board from screens and devices already in the building rather than doing a hardware refresh.
How do I create a digital menu board in Look?
Pick a food and beverage template from the library and edit it in the browser – item names, prices, photos, category headings, a QR code if you want one. Percentage sizing keeps the layout right in portrait or landscape. Then save the board, put it in a playlist, assign that playlist to a screen and set the time slots it runs in. Publishing takes the board live, and later edits reach the screen the same way.
How fast can I change a price or remove a sold-out item?
Edit the item in the browser, publish, and the screen picks the change up on its next sync. Nobody drives out, nothing gets reprinted, and the board doesn't have to be rebuilt to pull one line off it. Where the item sits on boards in twenty locations, a single publish covers all of them. Where it sold out at one site only, target that screen by its tag and leave the rest of the group alone.
Can menus switch automatically between breakfast, lunch and dinner?
Yes. Smart Scheduling is a weekly schedule built from daily schedules and time slots, so breakfast can end at 10:30, lunch run until four, and happy hour start at five with nobody touching the screen. Each screen runs in its own time zone, which matters as soon as a group spans more than one. A limited-time campaign takes its dates from the content's Lifetime setting, so it retires itself on the last day.
What happens to my menu if the internet goes down?
The board doesn't go blank during an outage: scheduled images and video keep playing from the player's local cache. That is why offline playback counts for most in drive-thru lanes and back-of-house positions with weak signal. Web content, live streams and apps all need a connection and won't play from cache, so build a board that has to survive an outage out of cached media. As soon as the line returns, the player syncs again.
Can Look connect to my POS system?
Look supports connected workflows through a Zapier app, GET action trigger, outbound webhooks, and Embeddable Code. These options can launch a promotion from another tool, send a notification when content starts or finishes, or place a live web widget in a screen zone. Look does not include a native POS connector or general-purpose REST API, so all prices and sold-out items are managed in the CMS unless one of these workflows is configured.
Can I show calorie counts and allergen information on a menu board?
Yes. Calorie counts, allergen notes and nutritional details are content like anything else on the board. Put them beside the price, in a dedicated zone, or behind a QR code that opens the full information on the guest's phone. What Look does is render what you put on the screen; it does not verify it. Whether a menu meets a particular labeling rule stays a decision for you and whoever signs off on your menu.
Can I run menu boards in more than one language?
Yes. Build and schedule a playlist per language. A bilingual board can alternate two versions of the same menu, or two screens can take one language each. Where only some locations need multilingual content, tags keep the right playlist on the right screens. The translation itself is prepared elsewhere; Look's part is scheduling and distributing every language version.
Can one screen show the menu and a promotion at the same time?
Yes. Screen Layouts splits a display into zones: the menu takes the main area, a promo video runs in a side panel, a ticker crosses the bottom. Every zone has its own content and playlist, which lets one board carry a full menu and a limited-time offer without cutting between them. Note that a layout zones a single screen – it does not stretch one canvas across several displays.
How do I manage menu boards across several locations?
Every screen sits in the same account, so a change reaches one board, a tagged group or the whole estate in a single publish. Tags are what give a region, a store format or a screen type content of its own. Access is granted per CMS section to each invited user, which keeps publishing apart from device pairing and account settings.
Do digital menu boards work in drive-thru lanes and outdoors?
Yes, with the right hardware. Look is the software; sunlight readability, weather sealing and continuous running hours come down to the display you mount, which is why outdoor lanes and windows want high-brightness commercial panels rather than a consumer TV. On the software side two things matter outdoors: offline playback, for lane connectivity you can't rely on, and a layout with few enough items to read from a moving car.
Are digital menu boards worth it compared with printed menus?
That depends on how often the menu changes. A board reprinted once a season makes a weaker case than a café repricing weekly, or a QSR running limited-time offers where every change means a design, print and delivery cycle – the cycle a digital board reduces to an edit. Consistency is the other half: one publish puts the same menu and the same price on every screen in every location.
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