Need help creating a menu for your restaurant?
Or maybe you are just curious about restaurant menu examples. Whatever the reason you found the right place. There are various types of menus and each one has its own purpose. The main menu types you will find in casual dining are
- Static
- A La Carte
- Fixed
- Cycle
The two most popular are A La Carte and Static. These restaurant menu examples will mostly be those two.
A Static menu never or rarely ever changes, it also is more likely to have meal descriptions due to the fact that it is a whole meal instead of just one item like you would see on the A La Carte menu.
First of the restaurant menu examples is a Static menu it is also my favorite menu type, simply because I enjoy creating whole meals. It is more satisfying to make a main and sides that complement each other to satisfy a hungry human. Plus, meal descriptions give the opportunity to make your creation sound tasty and tempting.
Building Your Menu
Not all menus will have pictures depicting the meals. You will notice that some of these restaurant menu examples use drawings or vector images instead.
Others are simply text, simple can also be elegant especially when font is appropriately applied, like a lovely calligraphy. Places to find free fonts include dafont.com and fontesk.com. If you want create your own fonts you can check out calligraphr.com.
I have a page for blank menu examples that are solely to give you an idea about restaurant menu examples before all the text and extras are added in.
You can get accents, such as pretty dividers from the public domain vectors site or places like pixabay.com.
Public domain means they are 100% free and usable in all ways such as commercial, in your blog or social media.
The colors that are linked to hunger include yellows, reds, and oranges. Color psychology is useful in food marketing.
Colors to avoid due to appetite decreases are blue, gray, brown and sometimes even purple since purple is not a color found in many types of food. These colors are linked to unnatural things.
A La Carte Restaurant Menu Examples
The restaurant menu examples below they are mainly A La Carte with a few drinking AND dessert menus for good measure.
You will notice in the A La Carte menus there is a price listed next to each item. You will find sections for appetizers, mains, drinks, and desserts. Sure you can also find similar on a Static menu and a few A La Carte menus do have a small section of meals.
When I think of A La Carte menus things like fast food or cafes sometimes even a bar menu has me comparing it to the A La Carte menu type.
Drink menus are standardly a form of the A La Carte menu type since each of the beverage’s costs something different and there are even separate sections. For instance you will see a section for wine and another for beer. This is mostly true for all drink menus, although I have seen drink menus that just had a long list of everything, and no specialized drinks were advertised on it. Special cocktails sell well because people often want to try something new. I know I do, I am very curious and like to taste new things.
Using these restaurant menu examples you can get an idea to build your own or to better understand in what restaurant menus look like. Along with what you can expect to see on them. I didn’t fully flesh out all the menus, I will be posting an article on menu descriptions and will be supplying examples.
These two last restaurant menus examples are of take away or delivery also called flyers. They are a way to advertise your menu by providing an eye-catching layout.
Software For Building Menus
You can build menus and flyers using the program Canva as it has many free templates to choose from. I can’t personally comment on Canva as it is a software I do not use. I think I tried it once and did not like the feel of it.
If you are not confident in your graphic design or digital art skills. A free and powerful digital art software that I use is Krita. It’s user friendly and doesn’t take up a ton of space.
There are also free brushes that can be downloaded but some of the fancy brushes cost money. I have several different brushes for almost any occasion. I like the control that art programs give the options are endless.
Have fun with your creation, I’d love to see what you come up with even if it’s just for fun or family.
