Select Maintenance > Menu > Submenus to access this function.

Submenus provide a means to group similar menu items that reflect logical subdivisions of a restaurant menu. Servers navigate through the various submenus to enter items ordered by guests. Typical submenus include such things as ‘Appetizers,’ ‘Soups,’ ‘Salads,’ and ‘Beverages.’ Group submenus together to create a complete working menu for the restaurant.

Submenus quick tips

Things to remember when you create a new submenu include:

• Submenus provide a means to group menu items logically based on the menu of a restaurant. Examples of submenus include Beverages, Appetizers, Entrées, Desserts, Beer/Wine, Cocktails, and Lunch Specials.
• If you assign a bitmap image to an item in Item Maintenance and select that item for a button on a submenu, the bitmap for the item appears on the button in place of the item name on the submenu. Bitmap images must be 80 x 26 pixels and reside in the \Aloha\Bmp directory. An image is not available for selection for an item until you use the Media Files function to upload the image.
• You can price your menu items at the submenu level on the Layout tab. Select the button on which to place the item and enter item and pricing information under the ‘Item and pricing group bar’ to the right.
• You can track and enforce Item availability for any item attached to a submenu, notifying and preventing servers from selling an item that the restaurant does not have. This helps reduce the number of manager voids required because an item is not currently available.

Submenu tab

Use the Submenu tab to create and define each submenu.

Group Bar: Settings

Short name — Identifies the submenu. The short name appears on a button on the order entry screen. The short name is centered on the button and can be up to 15 characters in length. Insert ‘\n’ at the desired line break to have the text appear on two lines. For example, type ‘Happy\nHour’ to have ‘Happy’ appear on the top line and ‘Hour’ appear on the bottom line. Keep in mind, ‘\n’ uses two of the allotted 15 characters.

Long name — Identifies the submenu using a longer, more descriptive name. The long name appears on reports and can be up to 40 characters in length.

Exception modifier group — Designates the group of items you can use to modify any menu item on the submenu without having to define the items as modifiers for each item. Exception modifiers do not necessarily apply to a specific menu item but are requested by guests often enough to warrant their inclusion in the order entry system. Examples of exception modifiers include such things as cheese sauce, onions, hot sauce, and more. To access the exception modifier group in the FOH, touch Modify, and then touch Special. Related Requirements: To create exception modifier groups, select Maintenance > Menu > Exception Modifiers.

Submenu panels — Designates the custom submenu panel to use in place of the ‘classic’ submenu, when you create a custom submenu in Table Service Screen Designer. Once you replace the ‘classic’ submenu with a custom submenu panel, you cannot add a submenu button to the classic submenu.

Slave to submenu — Designates the submenu to which the current submenu automatically links, when slave to submenu is in effect. When you set the current submenu as a slave to another submenu, a warning message appears, informing you that any non-slave items associated with the current submenu will be removed. For example, let’s say there are two submenu records. Submenu 1 contains items 100, 101, and 102. Submenu 2 contains items 200, 201, and 202. Additionally, for Submenu 2, item 300 is a slave to item 200, and item 302 is a slave to item 202. If you set Submenu 2 to be a slave to Submenu 1, when the system saves the record, item 100 is replaced by item 300, item 101 is replaced by item 301, but item 102 is removed, as it does not have a slave item associated. Related Requirements: You must access Maintenance > Business > Installed Products > Global tab and select ‘Enable slave to submenu and items’ under the ‘Menus’ group bar to enable this option.

Allow auto menu overwrite — Enables an auto menu that is scheduled as an event to overwrite, or replace, the selected submenu. See the AutoMenu section in this guide for more information on how to set up and assign an auto menu to a submenu.

Layout tab

The Layout tab contains blank buttons that you use to form a logical group of menu items for a submenu. For example, place all soup items on the Soup submenu. Menu items appear on the order entry screen in the order in which you place them on the Layout tab; therefore, add the most popular items first. Related Options: To change the number of rows and columns defined for submenus, access Maintenance > Business > Installed Products > Global tab and edit the values for ‘Submenu rows’ and ‘Submenu columns’ under the ‘Menus’ group bar.

Group Bar: Item and pricing

Type — Determines if you will place a menu item on the button or if the button is one you will use to perform a price lookup. You can add only one button of the ‘PLU Button’ type to each submenu and the remaining options on the group bar become unavailable; once added, ‘PLU Button’ is no longer available as a choice from the ‘Type’ drop-down list. Required Options: When you select ‘Item Button,’ you must select a menu item from the ‘Item’ drop-down list.

Item — Designates the menu item to place on the guest check when you touch this button in the FOH.

Price method — Determines the price of the item when it is added to a guest check using this button.

Item price — Indicates to price the item based on the price established in Item Maintenance. This is the default ‘Price method.’ Related Options: When you select ‘Item price’ as the ‘Price method,’ the price of the item in Item Maintenance appears in ‘Default price’ as read-only.

Button price — Indicates to price the item using the button price you establish for the item here on this submenu. Required Options: You must designate the price to charge for the item in ‘Button price.’

Price level — Indicates to price the item based on the price established in a price level. Required Options: You must select the price level to use from the ‘Price level’ drop-down list that appears when you choose this option.

Default price — Indicates the price of them as it exists in Item Maintenance. The price shown here is read-only. Required Options: You must select ‘Item price’ as the ‘Price method’ to enable this option.

Button price — Designates the actual price to use for the item when using this button to add the item to the guest check. Required Options: You must select ‘Button price’ as the ‘Price method’ to enable this option.

Price level — Designates the price level to use for the item when using this button to add the item to the guest check. Required Options: You must select ‘Price level’ as the ‘Price method’ to enable this option.

The following buttons and options also appear on the Layout tab:

Page up — Returns you to the first page of button positions.

Page down — Provides access to more button positions, should you have more items than the number of buttons that appear on the screen.

Sort ^ — Sorts buttons in alphabetical order, from top to bottom.

Sort > — Sorts buttons in alphabetical order, from left to right.

Consolidate — Moves buttons to eliminate blank spaces between buttons on the screen.