Timed Menus: New thread, new feature?

[ChadCap864]

I have a large database of breakfast, lunch, then dinner menus, so the kitchen does not offer all 3 all day. Is there a way to deactivate menu items during certain times of the day, or even make them disappear from the POS so servers cannot ring them in? 

Last thread on this closed in 2020, so I figure there's been more features built to address this. I can auto-discount menu items and groups for our happy hours, but under Menus and under Categories, there isn't a way I've found to control availability times for in-store POS ordering. This would go along way to reducing menu screen scrolling, and eliminating errors from staff. 

Thanks for any help and suggestions. 

[TheRealChipA]

Hi there @ChadCap864.. If you edit your menus, you will see an availability section.  Edit that and you can specify days/times when each menu is available.

Note, however, that this ONLY works on our POS, not in our online stores.  For that, you will need to also implement timed categories.

[TheRealChipA]

@ChadCap864 I should mention that if you don't have all of your, say, breakfast items grouped in any one Restaurants menu, then you CAN use timed categories instead of timed menus.  That way, changes made will be reflected in both your POS and your online store.

[ChadCap864]

Thanks @TheRealChipA 

I've been searching around my Square For Restaurants Premium dashboard and cannot find this for the life of me. Would you be able to type out a flow chart to how you found the timed categories or timed menus setting? Thank you so much

[TheRealChipA]

@ChadCap864 here are the paths from your web dashboard.

For timed categories, go to Items > Categories.  Edit or create a category, then scroll down.  You'll se an Availability section.  Toggle on "Only during certain days and times."  There you will be able to specify exact availability at the category level.

For timed menus, go to Items > Menus.  Edit or create a menu.  At the bottom you will see Availability.  Click the Edit button next to it and you can edit each menu's availability there.

[ChadCap864]

The availability is only for online orders, not instore. Do you see the same thing? Here's the script: 

Availability

 

Set order windows for pickup, delivery, and self-serve orders

Set order windows for online customers placing pickup, delivery, and self-serve orders for items in this category. Your Square Online site must use the Order Online  template to apply availability settings, and this doesn’t apply to services and classes at the moment.

[TheRealChipA]

@ChadCap864 Yup, I see that.  Very interesting, indeed.  What is weird to me is that when Restaurants' menus were first introduced, they only worked on our POS.  Now, it seems their functionality has been expanded for online stores, though I'm pretty sure I never saw an announcement.  It makes sense to me that categories would only change online store availability and/or kiosk availability.  But it now seems that I was relying on old information about Menus that means what I thought should work, won't work.  Sigh.  So, my apologies.

Rather than slow things down with a lot of back-and-forth here, I'm going to reach out to some of my development team contacts at Square and see what I can learn.  But, it would seem that for now your employees are just going to have to be more   After I have more to share with you, I will do so.

Also, it looks like I need to familiarize myself with these new features of Menus.  I'm wondering if  my online store needs to have its own separate menu page that I maintain, anymore.  From what I'm seeing, I might be able to consolidate my efforts and keep both in sync all the time, which would be nothing short of amazing.  But it could be I'm misinterpreting what I'm seeing, too.  Ha.

Give me a day or so and I'll be back with you.  Again, my apologies for misleading you earlier.

[AcadianPOS]

Good to know!!