Reading time: 10 mins. 
Implementation time: 50 mins.

Page with meals categories

Meals list page

A good pizza place needs attractive and informative pizza menu. Have a look at a pizza menu we created with FW Food Menu. A live version is available on FW Food Menu Pizzeria showcase demo.

Reading time: 10 mins. 
Implementation time: 50 mins.

Check out our Pizzeria restaurant Guide for more details on configuring Pizzeria menu. The pizzeria menu should be intuitive, well-organized, and attractive so the customer could be inspired by your menu and easily find out what’s included into a desired Pepperoni pizza.

Our Pizzeria menu is a great example of an effective and good-looking 3 columns menu with beautiful meals images, stylish meals backgrounds, tiered pricing, and descriptions of ingredients. You can create the same pizza menu all by yourself, and you don’t need to be a professional. This showcase can be a good fit to any other fast food restaurant type -  fish and chips, sandwiches, hamburgers, tacos, ice cream, etc. The only difference will be in meals’ types and the number of categories you will need to create. We will describe the page of the menu, its elements, and the business idea behind each element. Make sure to understand that to proceed with creating the same menu you need to prepare media content and install FW Food Menu to your Joomla website. To learn how to get started with FW Food Menu, review Getting started documentation page. If you have media content and FW Food Menu ready, it takes less than one hour to create a similar online menu. The overall process for creating such a menu looks as follows:

1. Prepare media content - images of different pizza types (30 mins).
2. Install FW Food Menu to present your online menu with a simple and elegant design that fits your pizza place (5 mins).

3. Display all meals to show their images, pricing, portion sizes, and descriptions (40 mins).
4. Configure promo options to highlight and style specific meal items (5 mins). Let’s review the Pizzeria restaurant menu we created below. Pizza menu page

Pizza menu page

A pizza menu should be colorful with appetizing images and complete details. A customer should be able to look through the menu before they start ordering. Make sure you have a clear list of the meals you have on offer. Aside from a clear list, it is also a great tool that you can promote your meals with.

This page is created based on the Menu layout allowing to display a category along with meals included in this category on the same page. The meals are arranged in three columns and each meal has a list of ingredients, available sizes and respective price for each size. Some of the meals are marked with Recommended and New promo emphasizing that the meal is worth paying attention to. Let’s review each element of the menu below:

1. Page title. A title of the Pizzeria restaurant.

2. Menu section title. A clear title of the menu section. You can add as many menu sections as it is provided by your menu.

3. Menu section description. We added a text and image for a menu section description. You can add either of them or both.

4. Meal. Meal referring to the Pizza category.
5. New promo. A new meal highlighted with a blue label. You can choose between 4 promo options - Special, Recommended, New, and Meal of the Day. Each promo is styled differently.
6. Meal background image. We placed a paper styled background image for each meal. Aside from a background image, you can set a background color.
7. Meal image. An appetizing meal photo attracting the eye.


8. Meal title. A beautifully styled and easy-to-find meal title.
9. Meal description. A description of meal ingredients to provide your customers with more details.

10. Prices and sizes. Clear pricing terms outlining meal sizes and corresponding prices for each size.

Our Pizzeria menu features a simple layout and design, allows to emphasize specials, style meals with beautiful background images and color, and many more. We have clearly outlined all the steps for creating such a menu in our Pizzeria Restaurant guide. Should you have any problems while configuring the menu, feel free to ask questions in the comments section at the bottom of the documentation page or contact us using General Questions form in your Client Section.

New free FW Food Menu has become the best we've ever developed so far. Breaking down significant functionality pieces into separate add-ons and introducing new design concept to make any design of menu possible extensions has now dropped all its limits and will satisfy any needs.

Free Component

From now on FW Food Menu will be free. Even free version has lots of features that would allow building most online menus. Among the most powerful features we would name:

• Batch Operations - very simple text mode to quickly build category structure and fill in categories with meals;
• individual Category settings -  allow to override global configuration by some or all parameters;
• free Columns Layout plugin - allows aligning meals into columns;

Add-ons Section

Separating functionality and designs into add-ons helps make releases faster and more stable, focus on every add-on in particular, have its own demo and documentation for every product.

In Add-ons section in administrator panel on your website you can always:

• access all available, purchased and free add-ons;
• see if any updates are available at the moment;
• download and install all add-ons on a clean installation by using your Access Code in free FW Food Menu component.

All new add-ons (plugins, modules, designs) and services related to main component will become available and appear in Add-ons section as soon as they are published on official Fastw3b website.

New Functionality

Let's have a look at all add-ons we have for FW Food Menu 2.0.0.

• Coffee Shop Design - Coffee Shop inspired design with coffee palette colors and font that helps to create right atmosphere for a coffee menu. Has special design for Promo badges which would become available with Promo plugin and promo badges switched to Text Badges.
• Itallian Design - Design inspired with Itialian menu stylimg and colors. Will look authentic with any Pizza & Pasta meals menu. Traditional colors palette and selected fonts help to bring some Italian touches to menu design. Has special design for Promo badges which would become available with Promo plugin and promo badges switched to Text Badges.
• Category Navigation Module - Coffee Shop inspired design with coffee palette colors and font that helps to create right atmosphere for a coffee menu. Has special design for Promo badges which would become available with Promo plugin and promo badges switched to Text Badges.
• Meal Category Module - Category meals presentation in different layouts with many prams to ahieve best presentation. It works and looks almost the same as component layout, but in a form of a module which can be used in different positions and with various parameters even on the same page.
• Cascading Layout Plugin - The best way to show menu on a single page. Selecting any categories you want to show on a page you will see them exactly the way they were designed. So if you need to show very different menu styles or if all categories are styled the same way Cascading Layout will help to show them in one place without reloading the whole page.
• Category PDF Plugin - Adds functionality to upload PDF version of online menu into a category and show Download PDF link next to category title. PDF can be created for each category individually or one file for parent category to have full menu in one file.
• Color & Background Plugin - Ultimate design option to create unqiue category styling by setting text color, background color and image for category in whole or menu items. Can be used in combination with designs. Custom CSS Styles will help to configure element details that may be needed.
• Columns Layout Plugin - Adds Columns option for Categoris layout allowing wrapping meals and subcategories into columns. Different number of columns can be configured for different categories or can be set to Default inheriting global Settings.
• Images Plugin - Adds images to meals listing with option to show them on to the left, right, top or hide. Having images for the category it would add a nice slide show of meals in Category List view when hovering a category.
• Prices & Discounts Plugin - Extends meal price field to a pricing grid, allowing to create a set of price for different meals or extras that come with a meal. Special price field allows to create discounts and can be used with combination of Promo Special or other promo features to emphasize meal value.
• Promo Plugin - A set of promo icons or text badges (depending on configuration) that allow to make a meal stand out. Meal of the day, Special, New and Recommended options are available. This options canbe used to create a separate page with all meals from different categories shown all together. Designs may have special styling for promo text bages.

Design Approach

Starting version 2.0.0 designs transformed into separate themes with its own layouts and CSS files which allows full flexibility for menu presentation. Besides, all published designs CSS will appear in read-only tabs in CSS Styles section of FW Food Menu, allowing to look up styles you may need to change.
New concept for designs make them totally individual and allows to designs and customize design much easier and quicker. Try it and you will see it yourself.

Updates and Pricing

Same as before we have 2 main sale options:

• Version. Cost less, but as soon as new minor version comes out you will need to buy it again. This approach is good for testing a product or a quick job where you don't plan to maintain a website.
• Subscription. Higher cost, but you get 12 months free updates which would be a huge saver considering discounts available for subscription and release frequency. This option is best for long-term users and loyal Fastw3b customers. We encourage you to subscribe using deals and get most discounted full packages if you had a chance to try Fastw3b products quality and support.

Enjoy using our new best FW Food Menu version 2.0.x and wait for new releases coming monthly!

FW Food Menu Joomla is a plugin for creating a menu on the site. Great for cafes, bars, restaurants and delivery sites. The main task of the plugin is to provide the consumer with a tool for convenient food choice, this is realized by: adaptability, downloading files, displaying special offers, and more. In this review - information about the possibilities and benefits of the FW Food Menu plugin.

Key features

Adaptive menu. Layouts are created considering all current trends in the web industry. Therefore, they are correctly displayed on different mobile devices, show a fast loading speed.

Menu in pdf format. Joomla restaurant menu component automatically generates a PDF file that contains all establishment menu. It is available for download.

Marketing. You can select a meal of the day, set new icons for it, formulate special offers and more.

All possibilities

The plugin consists of two parts: the FW Food Menu component and the FW Menu Categories module. This gives the site the following:

• Layout adjustment. You choose by yourself how to display meals: menu with all categories, special meal, no images, etc.
• HTML support. Developers can give the plugin a unique look due to HTML code changes support. You can change the appearance of the menu, an individual meal, etc.
• Categorization. Highlight drinks, cuisine, type of meal. Creating categories is possible under any criteria and in any sequence.
• Meals image. Use your own images to make your meal card even more attractive.
• Currency settings. Joomla food menu module allows you to select the currency displayed on the site.
• Additional information about the meal. Specify weight, proteins, fats, carbohydrates and calories.

Benefits of FW Food Menu

There are four main benefits of the Joomla food menu extension:

• Functionality. The meal menu management using a component is implemented simply, kind of, on an intuitive level. In 10 minutes, it's easy to figure out how to specify calories, make special offers, load images, etc.
• Ease of use. You can add a new category, menu item or meal in a few clicks, without going into complicated code structures.
• Developer support. The developer unlimited support is available to those who selected a premium subscription. The team will answer all questions and quickly eliminate the arisen difficulties.
• Documentation. It is polished and leaves no questions after reading. Everything is reviewed and described to the last detail.

Joomla food menu installation

The process of the plugin installation and configuration is described in detail in FW Food Menu documentation. We give the setup instructions:

1. Download the plugin archive from the official site.
   
   
    
2. Log in to the Joomla administrator panel.
3. Find the "Extensions" menu item in the top section of the screen.
4. In the drop-down list will be the "Manage" item. You should select "Install" in it.
   
   
    
5. The tab for the archive downloading will open. Download the file in any convenient way. If the download was done successfully, you will see the corresponding green notification message.

Now the plugin is ready for use.

Conclusion

FW Food Menu Joomla warrants the attention of those who are planning to create a website for a restaurant, bar or similar establishment. Business owners will appreciate the convenience of updating site content due to the simplicity of the original setting and an intuitive control panel.

Giving the site a unique style that emphasizes the interior of the establishment and the brand's philosophy is extremely simple and effective. Plugin features cover most of the food service owners’ needs.

In a highly competitivefood and restaurant industry having a website makes your effort to grow your business easier. We understand that food and restaurant industry is diverse so the menus also should be diverse and reflect the needs of the particular restaurant business. FW Food Menu is a great solution for creating effective food and restaurant industry websites. In this article, we will review a coffee shop showcase created with FW Food Menu.

The showcase is dedicated to the coffee shop. However, you may apply it to any other quick-serve restaurant business - tea room, sandwich bar, bakery, cake shop, etc. The only difference will be in types and number of categories you will need to create. We will describe each section of the menu, its elements, and the business idea behind each element. Each section is realized with a different style to present different menu ideas for your restaurant business, so choose the one that serves your business needs the best.

Make sure to understand that to proceed with creating the same website you need to prepare media content and install FW Food Menu to your Joomla platform. To learn how to get started with FW Food Menu, review Getting started documentation page. If you have media content and FW Food Menu in place, it takes around half an hour to create a similar online menu. The overall process for creating such a menu looks as follows:

1. Prepare media content - meal images grouped by categories/subcategories.
2. Install FW Food Menu to present your online menu with simple and elegant design.
3. Create required categories/subcategories to show different menu positions inside them.
4. Display all menu positions to show their pricing, portion sizes, and description.
5. Configure promo options to highlight and style specific menu positions.
6. Configure Category module to display particular categories.

Check out our Coffee Shop Guide for more details on configuring Coffee Shop showcase. Let’s, review the showcase section by section below.

Component section

This section displayed via FW Food Menu component. All menu items are arranged in two columns to make it look more attractive and structured. Two columns menu is especially helpful when you want to avoid long listings and save some space. An Italian layout design looks cool and will certainly attract customers’ attention.

Here you can see the following elements:

1. Category title. Give a short and clear title to the category.
2. Category description. Specify the description of the category to bring more clarity to what’s included in the category.
3. Meals section. Here are displayed the menu positions referring to the category.
4. Meal image. Upload meal images for better menu presentation.
5. Meal title. Specify the title of the meal using this field.
6. Labels and prices. Labels provide a lot of flexibility. You can use them to specify some additional information or extra ingredient and its respective price. Specify position sizes and respective prices using the pricing grid.
7. Special offer with discounts. Use a Special promo with discount prices to highlight a needed menu position.

Meal Category module sections

The last two sections, Coffee and Desserts, are displayed via FW Food Menu Meal Category module based on the Coffee Shop layout design. A clean and elegant Coffee Shop layout design catersfor even the most discerning customers.

Coffee section

The Coffee section is represented as two column menu, it includes nearly the same elements as the section above. However, there are two conceptual differences:

1. Meal description. Use this feature to specify the recipe or ingredients used in the meal.
2. New special. You can mark a meal as new to highlight it within the category.

Desserts section

The Desserts section is represented as two layers menu - a category with two subcategories. The subcategories are placed in two columns just as in the sections above. Let’s review the conceptual differences below.

1. Category with subcategories. We have split the Desserts category into two subcategories, Pies and Cakes, to create a two layers menu. A two layers menu enables your customers to quickly grasp the menu positions they are interested in. You can create as many subcategories as you need to reflect multi-level structure of your menu.
2. Meal of the day. The Meal of the day promo allows for effective promotion of your special menu positions. It is displayed within the category and at the top of the menu.

As you can see creating a professional and good-looking website for your coffee shop or any other restaurant business is not as complicated as it might seem. Choose the concept that fits your business idea and create your own coffee shop website with your own hands. We have clearly outlined all steps required for creating such a website in our Coffee Shop guide. Should you have any problems while configuring the website, feel free to ask questions in the comments section at the bottom of the documentation page.

The restaurant industry extensively uses a modern technology to promote its business. Good online footprint helps a business stand out among many competitors. A significant part of customers, before visiting a restaurant, look at the menu on a website to understand a range of price, or make an order online. Joomla restaurant menu extension allows you to add to your site a beautiful and convenient menu that will be visual and easy to read on a device with a screen of any size.

Online menu features for visitors

Attractive design. Much depends on the first impression. And in this case, we are talking not only about the beautiful food-shooting, but also about the harmonious placement and combination of elements on the site. Every detail should be “tasty” and encouraging the site visitor to become a customer of the restaurant.

Usability. Simplicity of work with the menu is no less important factor. The visitor should, without hesitation, navigate the menu on the site, easily finding the necessary sections, descriptions, prices, etc.

Fast page load. Whatever may be the number of photos and information on the site, the pages should be optimized to open as quickly as possible.

Responsiveness. The customer can pick a place for dinner using a work laptop, a smartphone on his/her way home, a tablet and any other device with its operating system. Thus, the menu should be displayed properly on each gadget and save the necessary functionality (for example, the ability to order this or that dish).

PDF format. Despite all the advantages of online, sometimes you need the ability to download full information in a file format that can be used at any time. The menu in PDF format, ready for download, is an indisputable advantage for the site of any food establishment.

Online menu features for a site administrator

Settings and layout flexibility. The ability to change the location of elements, appearance, color, font, add or remove individual fields - basic needs that allow you to create a resource individual style using ready-made templates.

Simplicity of adding files and work with them. The ability to download all the necessary information without unnecessary conversions and using photo editors greatly simplifies the work with the menu.
 
Categorization. To place drinks, hot dish, snacks in separate sections is a key necessity, which affects usability and further SEO optimization of the site.

Currency settings. Regardless of whether your restaurant is a local or international establishment, the currency selection in which prices will be displayed on the website is an important aspect.

Special offers, daily specials, new items. This allows you to highlight important offers, to show favorable terms of purchase. For example, display the daily specials at the top of the list or mark a new item in the range of the establishment.

Detailed documentation and support. Polished documentation allows you to install and configure a module for work without exterior help, and supportability guarantees the specialists assistance in case of any questions.

Why consider FW Food Menu for Joomla

Joomla restaurant menu extension is a manageable tool for creating an online menu on your site without the need of outside experts’ technical support. It has all the advantages listed above and allows using a simple set of actions to change the menu design, add and categorize dishes, create and display all the necessary marks and ingredients, indicate the volume, calorie content, etc. The product is fully responsive and looks beautiful on any device.
 
Food Menu product is compatible with Joomla versions 3.8.x and higher. Full details about the product, its use and installation can be found in the FW Food Menu documentation on fastw3b.com.

This release was basically centered around a new menu design. Along with that, there were a series of new features and updates. Let’s review all changes below:

• New menu front-end design. We have updated a menu design. A new modern and clean menu design is perfect for multipurpose restaurant use.
• New design for promo options (New, Meal of the day, Special). We have updated promo icons and boxes to make them look even more appealing and attractive.
• New 2 columns menu layout. Now your menu can be arranged in two columns to make it look more organized and structured.
• New Menu Layout options for a menu item. We have updated menu layout options to add more flexibility to a menu item display.
• New FWFM Meal Categories Module. This feature is especially helpful for those who want to display their menu in a module. FWFM Meal Categories Module has the same settings as the component - choose the categories you want to display, set two columns menu, display PDF download button, etc.
• New multi-price feature. Configure a pricing grid for a separate menu position - set different prices for different portion sizes.
• New price discounts option. This option allows to apply a discount to a specific meal. Discounts can be used in pair with promo options for more effective promotion.
• Revised admin panel. We have updated admin panel design. Now it looks cleaner.
• Revised PDF option. An updated PDF option allows to upload a full menu PDF file instead of generating it live. Earlier, it took too much time to wait for online generation and often had design issues.
• Joomla 3.9.x compatibility. We have tested the component with Joomla 3.9.x.

Get familiar with FW Food Menu documentation to find more information about our product. Please use the comments section at the bottom of each documentation page to comment and suggest improvements that will make the product experience better.

New:

• Cascading Menu Layout. This feature allows breaking your menu into categories’ tabs allowing to easily switch between multiple categories within the menu. As a result, you create a menu that works differently and looks more organized and structured.

• Promo options display in a category filter. We have added a parameter which helps to show only deals on the separate page. You can choose to display either all promo options or the specific ones. 

• Native Food Menu CSS file in the admin section. We have added the native Food Menu CSS file in Admin section so you could edit Food Menu CSS styles directly via Joomla admin panel.


Updates:

• Renamed Default design to Italian. Following our customers' requests, we have renamed Default design to Italian. The Default title caused confusion with a default option that sets a priority between menu item and global settings.   


Bug fix:

• Category Layout title display. Fixed the display of menu item title.

• Category Module design and title display. Fixed the display of the module design and title.

• Descriptions for CSS Style section. Added descriptions to CSS Style section to help understand how to customize CSS to avoid loss after updates.

• Removed decimal zeros from menu prices.  The menu prices displayed with decimals which make no sense. 


Reading Time: 10 mins. Implementation Time: 40 mins.

1. Prepare media content - meal images grouped by categories/subcategories.

2. Install FW Food Menu to present your online menu with a simple and elegant design that fits your business idea.

3. Create the required categories/subcategories to show different meals inside them.

4. Display all meals to show their images, pricing terms, portion sizes, and descriptions.

5. Configure promo options to highlight and style specific meals.


Cascading menu 

1. Menu item title. A title of the restaurant.

2. Categories titles. All categories you have created are displayed as tabs at the top of the menu. 

3. Meal image. Upload meal images to ensure that your menu looks attractive and appetizing.

4. Meal title. Specify the title of the meal.

5. Meal description. Add a description for each meal to provide your customers with more information about the meal.

6. Labels. Specify additional information for each pricing term using the dedicated pricing grid labels.

7. Prices. Add as many pricing terms as it is needed for a meal.

8. Meal of the day promo. Use Meal of the day promo to highlight specific meals with a grey box and green sticker.

9. New special promo. Highlight your new special meals with a blue sticker.