Menu categories

Categories are the sections of your menu. They decide how items are grouped on the register, on your public menu and in the storefront navigation. The screen’s own description says it best: “Organise your menu into sections guests and staff recognise at a glance.”

Plans

Bistro, Brasserie, Signature, Enterprise

Can it be switched off?

No. It is part of every plan that includes it and cannot be switched off.

Where to find it

Catalog → Menu Categories. You need tenant.categories.view to look and tenant.categories.manage to change anything.

Add a category

Select Add Category and fill in:

Field	What it does
Category Name	Shown to staff and guests. Required.
Category Description	Optional. Appears on category detail views.
Parent	Makes this a sub-section of another category. Leave empty for a top-level section.
Sort Order	Lower numbers appear first.
Active	Inactive categories stay in the system but do not appear on the menu.
Category Image	Optional. Pick from the built-in presets or paste an image URL.
Default kitchen course	Starter, Main, Dessert, or None (Main on register).

The default kitchen course

The field’s own hint: “New POS items in this category start on this course. Staff can still change S / M / D on the register.”

So it is a starting point, not a rule. Putting Entrées on Starter means a waiter adding an entrée on the register does not have to set the course by hand every time — which is the whole point of courses in a kitchen that fires in sequence.

Note

The course field only matters if course firing is switched on. It is one of the features that ships off by default — see Table sessions, split checks and seats for how to turn it on.

Reordering

Drag the rows to reorder them. The screen confirms with Order updated, or tells you Failed to update order if the save did not go through — in which case the on-screen order is not what guests will see, so reload and try again.

Inactive, deleted, and permanently deleted

Three different things, and they are not interchangeable.

Inactive — the category is hidden from the menu but everything stays intact. This is what you want for a seasonal section.

Delete — “This category will be moved to trash. You can restore it later.” Find it again under Deleted Categories and select Restore.

Permanently Delete — “This will permanently delete the category. This action cannot be undone!” Only available from the Deleted Categories list.

Caution

Deleting a category does not delete the menu items in it. Those items lose their section and may stop appearing where staff expect them. If a dish has gone missing from the register, check the category first — see A menu entry is missing.

Copying a menu to another branch

If you run more than one branch, a new location can start with Copy catalog & categories from another location rather than an empty menu. It reports back how many it brought across: “Copied 12 categories and 148 products.” See Locations and branch offerings.