Lunch menu, breakfast menu, dinner menu: Display categories by time of day

In many venues, the menu is not the same all day long. The breakfast menu ends at 11, the lunch menu is valid until 14, and the dinner menu appears in the evening. On paper, people use insert sheets or a phrase like "only until 14," which no one reads when ordering. In the digital menu of Same-QR, you instead set when each category is visible. Outside of these times, the page hides it from guests.

Why times belong on the menu

Anyone who scans the QR code at 15:00 and sees the lunch menu for 9.90 will want to order it. Then your staff have to explain that the kitchen has switched over. If the menu only shows what is available right now, these conversations disappear. The menu also gets shorter: in the evening, nobody scrolls past breakfast eggs any more.

How to set the time for a category

Each category in the editor has the setting “Only show at certain times” with the fields “visible from” and “visible until”.

• 1. Open your menu in the “Menus” tab and go to the category, for example “Lunch menu”.
• 2. Under “Only show at certain times,” select the times, e.g., from 11:30 to 14:00. The selection runs in 15-minute increments, and 24:00 is also possible as an end time.
• 3. The category then shows “visible 11:30–14:00”.
• 4. Publish the menu or tap “Publish changes”.

If you leave the fields empty, the category is always visible. With “always show”, you remove a time period. If the start and end times are the same, the editor will notify you, as the category would never be visible in that case.

In the editor, every category remains visible so that you can edit it at any time, even the breakfast menu in the evening. Only guests will not see it outside the set time.

By sentence instead of by click

With voice input (from Gastro Starter) it is even faster. In the “What should change?” field, write or say, for example, “Lunch menu only until 14:00”. You see the change beforehand in the “I’ll change this” list and save it with one tap.

Typical examples

General categories such as drinks or desserts can be left without a time; they remain on the menu all day.

Category timing or switching entire pages?

Category timing toggles individual sections of a menu on and off. It is available in every plan, including the free one.

Gastro Pro adds time-based control of the QR code: A single QR code can link to up to five custom pages, directing users to different content depending on the time of day—for example, a lunch menu at midday and a dinner menu in the evening, all in your own design. This is worthwhile when the menus differ significantly. For most venues, category timing on a single menu is sufficient.

Conclusion

With “Only show at certain times,” guests see exactly the categories that are currently active: a breakfast menu in the morning, a lunch menu at midday, and a dinner menu in the evening. You set it up once, and it runs automatically every day. You can start for free on sameqr.com and test category timing right away on your menu.

Frequently asked questions