MustHaveMenus, an online service that allows restaurant to digitally create and customize all types of menus (see our previous review of MustHaveMenus), has just announced the launch instant printing and real-time web updating. With these two new services, MustHaveMenus rounds out its service offering and further distinguishes itself in the crowded menu management market.
MustHaveMenus offers restaurant owners the ability to order printed menus online and have them shipped directly to the restaurant. Previously, restaurant would need to design their menus on MustHaveMenus, download a PDF file and send it to their printing companies. MustHaveMenus is cutting out the middle man with a seemingly complete and affordable set of printing services.This printing service separates MustHaveMenus even further from its competitors (see our SinglePlatform review and Locu review), who have chosen to focus on the online aspect rather than full menu management.
This is where MustHaveMenus is competing more directly with its other competitors. Restaurants can publish menus they create on their website and Facebook page. This ensures that the menus they have in-house are the same as on the website, not just in terms of content, but also in terms of look and feel. This is a great feature and offers better branding consistency than other online menu management services. The menus are optimized for web and even for mobile devices.
However, there are drawbacks to these updates. While the menus may look great, they are published as images and therefore do not offer any crawlable content, which is not great for the restaurant’s SEO. Additionally, MustHaveMenus does not offer a broader distribution network for the restaurants’ menus, which is one of the main benefits of services like SinglePlatform. MustHaveMenus, though, has added several new features lately and may further encroach on online competitors.