Diningverse Blog » How To – for Restaurants

An easier way to show/hide your menu items

Diningverse — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:00:47 +0000

Quite a few of our customers found it not so clear (and some downright confusing) to hide and show their menus, menu sections and individual menu items. So we decided to make it quite a bit more obvious to decide which elements are on and which are off.

Introducing the brand new ON/OFF slider with an immediate feedback that allows you to put your items on the menu and equally easily take them off.

It’s incredibly convenient now to “turn menu items on/off” which will hide them from the menu. You no longer need to visit the menu item details screen just to take it off the menu. Simply click the on/off slider and the menu item is immediately hidden on your Diningverse menu (and also on your Facebook menu).

The on/off slider is also available to hide entire menu sections or even whole menus from your Diningverse website.

To find out more about Diningverse restaurant websites visit our Tasty Page and create your free account to test it out.

Post your menu on Facebook

Diningverse — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:34:16 +0000

More and more restaurants are starting to use Facebook to enhance their interaction with customers. Diningverse now let’s you put your menu on Facebook and keep it automatically updated whenever you make any changes to it within your Diningverse restaurant editor.

Watch this short video to see how incredibly easy it is to set this up.

Follow these simple instructions to add your menu to Facebook.

You can add your menu created and maintained on Diningverse thanks to OpenMenu, a new standard to store and distribute restaurant information (including full menus) on the Internet.

Login to your Facebook Account that you use to maintain your restaurant’s Facebook page
Follow this link http://facebook.com/apps/… to add the OpenMenu Tab application to your page
Click the Add to my page link on the left side navigation
Select your Restaurant Facebook page and click the Add to Page button
Go to your restaurant’s Facebook page and refresh the page
Click the Menu link in the side navigation
Click the Edit Settings button on the top right part of the content area
Switch to your Diningverse restaurant editor and go to the SETTINGS tab, OpenMenu sub-tab
Copy the OpenMenu Format menu link
Switch back to your Facebook page
Paste the OpenMenu Format menu link to OpenMenu Tab Settings ‘Location’ textbox
Adjust the additional settings if desired
Click the Save button
Reload the page, your menu will now appear on your Facebook page

To find out more about Diningverse restaurant websites visit our Tasty Page and create your free account to test it out.

Managing and displaying your opening hours just got much easier

Diningverse — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 17:43:00 +0000

It was possible to display your restaurant opening hours on Diningverse restaurant website from the moment Diningverse was born. However, it was nowhere as simple, sophisticated or versatile as right now.

Selecting and publishing your opening hours could not be easier. Just login to your Diningverse restaurant website and in the Restaurant Editor navigate to INFO → Hours. It looks something like this:

…and here is what it looks like on your Diningverse restaurant website.

Setup your Opening Hours in Restaurant Editor

On the Opening Hours editing screen in Restaurant Editor you have the option to specify the opening hours for each day of a week. Check a checkmark next to a day when you’re open and specify the opening and closing time. That’s it. If your restaurant is closed on Sunday, simply uncheck the checkbox next to ‘Sun’.

New Feature:

We added the ability to ‘split’ hours for a day so that you can specify your morning hours and evening hours. We heard from many restaurants that they’d like to have the ability to do this since often there is a down-time after the lunch service has ended and restaurants actually close the doors to prepare for the evening crowd.

To split your opening hours for any day, simply click the ‘split hours‘ and the day will be split into 2 intervals. Now just specify the beginning and ending time for each interval.

If you no longer need to have 2 intervals for a day, just click the ‘join hour’ link and your opening hours for that day will be consolidated into one time interval.

The split hour are automatically formatted and displayed on each page of your Diningverse restaurant website.

Opening Hours formatted on your Diningverse restaurant website

Hope you enjoy this new functionality.

Create and Edit pages like a pro

Diningverse — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 23:47:10 +0000

One of the most requested features is finally here. Up until now, each Diningverse restaurant website had and About page and Specials page (in addition to D’Scoop, Menus, Photos and Contact). These pages were ‘hard coded’ into the website and included the ability to apply simple text formatting but did not look anything like the final version of the pages. Here is what it used to look like:

It used to be difficult to add pictures and create links. Also, the 2 ‘hard coded’ pages were there whether you needed them or not. If you did not have any specials to post on your website, there was an empty Specials page on your website.

This is all now history!

The new Pages functionality in the Diningverse Restaurant Editor allows you to create and edit any pages you desire:

New pages in the Diningverse restaurant website navigation

The new pages, in this case About, Specials and Catering, now have their own space in the Diningverse restaurant website sidebar.

It’s now super easy to do the following:

Reorder the pages using drag-and-drop functionality
Add a new page
Rename the page
Change the link for the page
Edit content using a TRUE what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG) content editor
Format the content, add pictures, links, tables, etc.
Delete a page if you no longer need it

Here is what it looks like in the Diningverse Restaurant Editor

Pages management in the Diningverse Restaurant Editor

Best of all, the actual edito width styles and everything else looks and behaves just like it will once you save the changes and the page is published on your Diningverse restaurant website.

Another great new feature that goes hand-in-hand with the content editor is the Hidden photo album.

Hidden photo album

You can hide/lock or show/unlock a photo album. This is very helpful if you have some pictures that you’d like to insert into pages but don’t necessarily want them to be visible on your photos page. The Misc pictures photo album above is hidden/locked so it does not appear on the website but the pictures from the album are included on the Catering page. Of course, pictures in the unlocked photo albums can be also included in the pages.

Adding a picture to a page is a snap. Just click the Browse Albums button next to the URL textbox and select a picture from one of your albums. That’s it. You can see what it looks like below.

Add pictures to your page content

We will post a short video showing how all this works in action and also will be posting some tips and tricks for adding links, formatting pictures and more.

Hope you like this new addition to Diningverse Restaurant Editor. Try it out!

News flash … Online Ordering now available in Diningverse

Diningverse — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:53:05 +0000

One of the top requested features for a while has been the integration with Online Ordering services. Today we are proud to announce that we have a simple and elegant way to integrate any online ordering service with Diningverse.

We added an Online Ordering section to the Info screen in Diningverse Restaurant Editor.

Online Ordering settings screen

As you can see from the screenshot above, it’s incredibly simple to add Online Ordering service to Diningverse Restaurant website. Just paste in the link to your online ordering website and click the Save Changes button.

Once the link is saved, it appears automatically in the sidebar of the Diningverse restaurant website and is available on every page of the site.

Online Ordering link in the sidebar

That’s it. Anytime a customer clicks the link, a new browser window will open and load the online ordering website.

Don’t have an Online Ordering service yet?

No problem! We have partnered up with our friends at MenuDrive to bring an excellent and super affordable online ordering to any restaurant. Existing Diningverse restaurants can sign-up for MenuDrive online ordering service directly from the Restaurant Editor.

With online ordering from MenuDrive restaurants can allow customers to order from their online menu. It’s a great way to increase ticket sales, streamline order-taking, and build customer loyalty.

Stay tuned for some extraordinary online ordering offers from Diningverse in partnership with MenuDrive coming very shortly.

Customize your restaurant website look & feel

Diningverse — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:05:15 +0000

Up until now, the Diningverse restaurant websites have been very informative, easy to use and generally very handy. One complaint we heard over and over was that each restaurant had to use the same simple design for their restaurant website. This simple design was well put together and sported a universal look that was easy for the site visitors to use. However, it lacked the ability to visually distinguish the individual restaurants that maintain their Diningverse restaurant websites.

Well, this is now history.

Introducing the Diningverse restaurant website Design Editor.

Similar to Twitter, restaurant managers can now customize the look & feel of their Diningverse restaurant website. They can choose colors for various parts of their website design and optionally add a fully custom graphical header. As part of this update, we have also reworked the placement of various pieces of content.

The interactive Design Editor makes it incredibly easy to experiment with various colors or simply use colors from your existing branding to adjust your Diningverse restaurant website to fit your style. Mexican restaurant can choose bright and vibrant colors while contemporary eatery can go with more elegant darker colors. The sample website design changes in real time to give you an idea of what the final result will look like.

You can use the color pickers or copy and paste the color code to match your exact branding colors.

You can keep it simple by sticking with the default header that includes the restaurant name in large, prominent font with a custom header color or you can have your graphical designer create a beautiful graphical header to give your Diningverse restaurant website even more personality.

We hope that you’re as excited about this new feature as we are here at Diningverse. Go ahead and try it out! You can access the Interactive Designer through the Settings screen within the Restaurant Editor.

Here are a few examples of Diningverse Restaurant Websites with customized design:

Let us know what you think. We’re already planning some more exciting features so stay tuned.

Visitor stats now available for full profiles

Diningverse — Sat, 08 May 2010 18:26:30 +0000

Much requested and long awaited feature is now available in the Restaurant Editor. Restaurant Managers can now review their visitor statistics (stats) on the Restaurant Editor Dashboard.

Visitor Stats on Restaurant Editor Dashboard

We decided to keep it simple and show the following stats (as you can see on the picture above):

Lifetime pageviews (combined total for all pages in a full profile since profile inception)
Lifetime recommendations (total recommendations from patrons since profile inception)
Pageviews for last 30 days
Pageviews for last 7 days

Although we did not add this feature until now, the visitor stats are available for all full profiles since their creation (going back as far as almost 2 years). We are using Google Analytics to collect the visitor stats for each profile, which enabled us to go back and retrieve the detailed numbers for each profile.

Restaurant Managers can now see how their profile is doing anytime they login to their Restaurant Editor.

While working on this feature, we have encountered an interesting fact (although expected, now confirmed): The full profiles with better, richer content and more recommendations receive significantly more visits and this collect much more pageviews.

Add item variations to your menus

Diningverse — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:00:13 +0000

Do you offer a half-rack or ribs or a cup of soup? Do your patrons get the luxury of adding a slice of cheese to their burger or ask to take off the fixin’s from their turkey club?

No problem! Add item variations to your menu items in a snap. It’s all automated and couldn’t be easier to use. Include the adjusted price or show that they should add or subtract a few cents.

Item Variations including prices

You can add multiple item variations to any item on your menu. The variations, together with the price are automatically added to the menu your patrons see on your Diningverse restaurant profile.

To add an item variation, just start editing the menu item in the Restaurant Editor, scroll down and click the Add variation link.

Add Item Variations in the Restaurant Editor

Input your variation and the price. You can continue to click the Add variation link to add additional variations. When finished, simply click the Save changes button.

Here is a short video to give you a better idea of how all this works.

Hope you like it. Please give us your feedback.

Thank you for using Diningverse!

More beautiful and easier to use Restaurant Editor

Diningverse — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:02:06 +0000

The Restaurant Editor got some new clothes. And it’s not just looks that improved. We have worked hard to make the user interface more intuitive and easier to navigate. The new Dashboard provides quick access to all parts of the restaurant profile and features a pop-up video featuring the Restaurant Editor walk-though.

New Dashboard in Restaurant Editor

If you’re using Diningverse for more than one restaurant, managing multiple restaurant profiles is now easier than ever. Just click the ‘down-arrow’ next to the current restaurant name and you’ll see a list of profiles you can choose to edit.

Choose the restaurant profile you want to edit

In the previous version of the Restaurant Editor, all the ‘basic details’ were displayed on the same page. Now we have re-organized the information in a more intuitive way into sub-sections so that you’re editing the exact information you need.

General Info sub-tabls

It was possible to maintain multiple menus for a while but now it’s even easier. We have re-designed the menu editing screen slightly to make it a little more intuitive. We’re planning more adjustments in the near future so stay tuned.

Manage multiple menus

Another improvement we have made:

Add new restaurant profile quicker and easier
Review all your billing details on one comprehensive screen
Manage your account details at any time

We hope that you enjoy the re-design. As always, we’re looking for your feedback so that we can continue improving Diningverse for you.

Thank you for using Diningverse!

Restaurant managers get a Free trial for a whole month

Diningverse — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:24:53 +0000

Restaurants can now sign-up for a new Diningverse full restaurant profile or upgrade their existing basic profile to a full restaurant profile and pay nothing for a whole month.

It’s very simple, restaurant owners/managers should check on Diningverse whether their restaurant has been already suggested by Diningverse patrons and their Basic profile added. They can browse for their restaurant name in the local area where their restaurant is located. While on the Basic profile page, simply click the link below ‘this is a basic profile’ sticky note and arrive on the Upgrade page.

In case the restaurant is not yet listed on Diningverse, restaurant owners/managers should just sign-up for a restaurant manager account and add their restaurant profile directly.

The Free Month trial will start automatically for every full restaurant profile. The restaurant will not be charged anything for the first full month and the full profile can be cancelled (or ‘downgraded’ back to basic profile) at any time during the trial period. After that, should the restaurant manager decide to keep the full profile, Diningverse will charge $79/month. There is no set-up fee, no contract, no obligation. “If you like it, keep it. Otherwise, cancel or downgrade at any time.”