Screenly - Restaurant digital signage and digital menu boards

Restaurant digital signage enables restaurants to display eye-catching digital menus and engaging promotional content to customers. Screenly provides a robust solution for restaurant digital signs that allows restaurant staff to manage their digital restaurant signs and digital menu board screens from a central web interface. With Screenly, users can set and forget their restaurant digital signage and digital menu screens and focus on growing their restaurant.

Benefits of restaurant digital signage

Screenly provides a variety of useful features for restaurant digital signage. These features include remote content management, content scheduling, screen playback monitoring, and more. While many restaurants use digital signage specifically for digital menu displays, using signs to display promotions, company branding content, event notices, and upcoming specials is also common. Restaurant digital menu deployments can be used for fast food menu boards, cafe menu boards, and fast-casual chains. When used in the right location with appropriate content, restaurant digital signage can also be used in more upscale chains. Read more below on each of these features and use cases and how they can benefit your restaurant.

This feature allows restaurant staff to change and update their digital signage content from anywhere with an internet connection. Users can change out restaurant menu screen content at the restaurant itself or from a central franchise management office. This feature is useful, as, without it, users need to update content with a USB drive manually. This manual process is a hassle and is time-intensive. Additionally, manually updating a sign can be disruptive to customers. Imagine your digital restaurant signs displaying a black screen for twenty minutes during business hours as an employee stands on a chair and attempts to update the screen’s content. That is not an ideal customer experience. Saving time through remote content updates also promotes that content gets changed out regularly, which is key for successful digital menu restaurants.

With remote content management, restaurant staff can easily change out digital display content using a web interface on a laptop. To change out content, a staff member can simply upload the desired images, videos, or webpage content into their account. The content will then start displaying on the screen. Note that different content can be changed and deployed to specific screens at multiple restaurant locations. If you have multiple digital signage screens, you can choose to manage them together or break them into different groups with group-specific content with our group label feature. This feature is important for franchise restaurants with multiple locations as it enables a single employee to quickly manage digital signage content for the entire restaurant chain.

Many restaurants use digital menu boards to display different menus and digital menu pricing during breakfast, lunch, and dinner hours. Screenly’s digital menu software for TVs allows restaurants to schedule their menu content easily. Out-of-the-box, Screenly’s digital menu board software comes with a sophisticated playlist feature that allows users to schedule their menu board content in advance. The chances are that you have different menu items offered at different times of the day. Maybe you have a separate breakfast menu, lunch menu, and dinner menu. Perhaps you even have a special weekend or happy hour menu. Of course, you do not want to display your dinner menu during the lunchtime rush. With a TV menu board powered by Screenly, you can set your different menus to change at predetermined times automatically. All you need to do is enter the times you want to display each menu, and Screenly will take care of the rest.

Some users need their restaurant digital signage to work across different time zones. Screenly is an excellent solution for large restaurant franchises that operate TV menu restaurant screens across multiple time zones. You can set the time zone separately for each digital signage screen or group of screens.

In addition to displaying menu content, your team can also schedule social media content and special offers. Keeping rotating and different digital signage content is key to keeping customers engaged and ready to buy.

To learn more about digital restaurant signs and digital menu boards, look at our article on how to increase restaurant sales and customer engagement with digital menu boards.

Screen playback monitoring for your restaurant’s digital signage

Screenly’s intuitive user interface makes it super easy to monitor your TV menu boards for any playback issues or malfunctions. With Screenly, a restaurant’s IT employees and other team members can quickly glance at an online dashboard to monitor their digital menu TV screens’ statuses remotely.

This feature is important, as restaurant staff can address any screen malfunctions rapidly. Without this feature, the responsible parties may have to wait hours before they hear from frontline restaurant employees about any restaurant menu board issues. This communication delay is particularly common when those responsible for managing a screen’s content work offsite from the restaurant location. When a restaurant menu board is down, this issue is particularly visible to customers, and it does not provide a positive impression of your restaurant. Additionally, in mission-critical settings where restaurant menu board digital signage is the only way for customers to see food and pricing options, screen downtime can result in significant revenue impacts.

Having beautiful and clear digital menu board content is key for a successful restaurant digital menu board deployment. Digital menus for restaurants need to be both eye-catching and easily legible, as customers need to use restaurant menu displays quickly to make a decision on what to order. Digital menu design also needs to be easily changeable for new product releases and menu updates.

While some restaurants use graphic designers, many restaurants use online drag-and-drop design tools like Canva to build and update their digital menu designs. Creating your digital menu design does not have to be overwhelming, and you can get your first version up and running in just a few clicks. Using just a few design elements, your designs can fit your use case and setting, whether it’s cozy cafe menu signage, a branded cafeteria menu board, or a corporate-controlled fast food digital menu board. Digital menus for restaurants can feature new themes, such as holiday or seasonal themes, quickly and easily by adding a few design highlights on the online template. Teams can also build mobile versions of digital menu board templates that customers can scan and read using QR codes. Learn more on how to use Canva with Screenly.

Some restaurants require custom integrations and tooling with their digital menu deployment. They want their high-quality digital menu content to integrate with existing inventory systems, pricing software, online ordering and food delivery systems, and more. In the past, this meant that restaurant teams would have to manually transcribe this information onto digital food menu content slides and update their screens one by one. With Screenly Edge Apps, this manual data transfer is a problem of the past.

Screenly Edge Apps provide out-of-the-box and fully customizable apps that run locally on each digital signage player. Restaurants can use in-house developers or hire third-party software teams to customize their digital menu board app line-by-line at the code level so that their screens show exactly what they want and they have a TV menu template to use multiple times.

Learn more about Screenly Edge Apps.

Cost-effective digital signage for restaurants

To run a restaurant digital sign, you will need a digital signage player for each TV. A digital signage player is a physical piece of hardware that renders your content to a display screen. Screenly’s digital signage players, the Screenly Player and Screenly Player Max, are cost-effective and energy-efficient digital signage players. Each Screenly digital signage player comes with all the required connection cords for your first restaurant digital sign. Connect your Screenly Player to the internet via ethernet or WiFi, connect the device to a power outlet, and connect the device to your display screen via HDMI. You will then have your first restaurant digital sign up and running.

Screenly makes digital menu boards for restaurants affordable. Digital menu board prices start at $11 per month per screen when billed annually or $13 per month when billed monthly. Restaurants can cancel their plan and digital menu boards anytime. Other digital menu board costs include the digital signage player device. Restaurants need one digital signage player per sign. Screenly digital signage players come in the standard Screenly Player option for $219 and the Screenly Player Max option for $369. For a TV screen, any screen that accepts HDMI input works with Screenly digital menuboards. In some use cases where the restaurant menu sign is fully outside and in sunlight, such as menu board fast food drive-through screens, teams may need to explore more expensive outdoor restaurant menu monitors that can display content at higher brightness levels and function in high heat and high humidity. Today, users can get quality TV screens for just a couple hundred dollars at their local electronics store.

If you’re looking for digital menu board software free of charge, check out Screenly Anthias. Some digital menu solutions and digital menu companies may charge more than your restaurant is willing to pay for an initial digital menu board test, and a TV menu board software free solution is what you need. Screenly Anthias is free, open-source software that is available to anyone. This software only works for one screen at a time and requires some Linux knowledge and technical familiarity to set up, but it is a great way to get started with digital signage at no cost. However, if you are looking to launch a multi-screen deployment at one or multiple restaurants, we highly recommend the useful features with Screenly’s paid digital menu board solution.

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