Case Study: How Crust & Craft Pizza Co. ditched paper menus and boosted upsells with PosterBooking

The Client

Crust & Craft Pizza Co. opened its first shop on Oldham Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter eight years ago, serving Neapolitan-style sourdough pizza by the slice and whole pies for collection and delivery. A second site followed four years later in Chorlton, a few miles south, aimed at the same mix of lunchtime workers, students and evening takeaway custom.

The business is run by husband-and-wife team Marco and Sian Oduya, who split their week between the two shops along with a staff of twelve, including kitchen crew, counter staff and two assistant managers who open and close in rotation. Both sites are compact, fast-paced, and built around a menu that changes weekly depending on seasonal toppings, supplier availability and whatever new combination Marco is testing that month.

Menu agility has always been part of the brand's appeal, but it also meant the menu boards above the counter needed to keep up, something that proved far harder in practice than it sounds.

Life Before PosterBooking

Before PosterBooking, both Crust & Craft locations relied on a mix of printed A3 menu sheets slotted into frames above the till, a chalkboard for daily specials, and a laminated allergen notice that had not been updated in over a year because nobody wanted to redo the laminating.

Every time a topping sold out, changed price, or a new seasonal pizza launched, Sian had to design a new menu sheet in Canva, email it to a local print shop, collect the prints, cut them to size, and physically swap them into the frames at both sites. On a typical week this happened two or three times, more during the autumn when the menu rotated most aggressively. Each round trip, including design time, printing, travel and swapping, took around 45 minutes per location, and because Sian could not always be in both shops on the same day, one site often ran the old menu for a day or two longer than intended, confusing regulars and occasionally causing arguments at the till over prices.

Specials were handled even more manually. An assistant manager would handwrite the day's special on a freestanding A-frame chalkboard each morning, a task that ate up roughly ten minutes per shift and produced wildly inconsistent handwriting and spelling depending on who was on. When the shop wanted to promote a new pizza with a photo rather than just text, the only option was to print a poster, which meant another trip to the print shop and another round of Blu Tack and sticky residue on the window glass.

Price list changes were worse. Because the printed menu doubled as the allergen and pricing reference, any VAT or supplier-driven price adjustment required Marco to climb a small stepladder to remove the frame from above the counter, which sat just above head height and needed two hands to unclip, swap the insert, and reclip it back into place, all while customers queued below. Staff described this as the task everyone tried to avoid.

Adding it all up, the Oduyas estimated they were spending close to 6 hours a week across both sites on menu and signage admin: design, printing, travel between the print shop and both locations, climbing up to swap frames, and handwriting specials boards. Printing alone, including paper, laminating pouches and ink, cost the business around £140 a month, more in months with a full menu refresh.

There was also a softer cost. Because updates were such a hassle, the team often delayed menu changes to batch them together, meaning sold-out items stayed listed for days and new specials launched later than planned, costing potential sales during the gap.

The Solution

Marco came across PosterBooking while researching digital menu boards for a competitor's shop he'd noticed had a sleek rotating screen above their counter. After a short trial using the free plan, the pair decided to roll out PosterBooking across both locations to run live menu boards, specials promotion, and allergen information, all managed from one dashboard without needing to touch a frame, a ladder or a print shop again.

The appeal was straightforward: a single cloud dashboard where Sian could update prices or swap in a new pizza photo from her phone between orders, with changes appearing on screen within seconds at both sites simultaneously.

Where They Implemented It

PosterBooking screens went up in four spots across the two Crust & Craft locations:

• Above the counter at the Oldham Street shop, replacing the old framed printed menu, now running the full rotating menu with prices, photos and daily specials.
• Above the counter at the Chorlton shop, running the same core playlist so both sites always show identical pricing and availability.
• In the front window at Oldham Street, facing the street, playing a shorter loop of hero pizza photography, opening hours and a QR code linking to online ordering, aimed at passing foot traffic.
• A small screen by the till at Chorlton, previously the chalkboard spot, now displaying allergen information and the day's special, which rotates automatically on a schedule Sian sets once a week.

Each screen runs its own playlist tailored to its position, but all draw from the same central menu content library, so a price change made once updates everywhere it's referenced.

The Implementation

Crust & Craft used Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K devices behind each of the four screens, chosen because they were inexpensive, already familiar to Marco from home use, and simple enough that neither of the assistant managers needed any technical background to maintain them.

Installation was handled over a single quiet Tuesday afternoon. For each screen, the process was the same: plug in the Fire TV Stick, connect to the shop's wifi, install the PosterBooking app from the Amazon app store, and sign in with the pairing code shown on screen. Each install took roughly two minutes once the stick itself was connected to power and the telly, and all four screens were live and pulling content from the dashboard within about half an hour, including time spent mounting two of the sticks more tidily behind the screens with short HDMI extenders.

From there, Sian built the first menu playlist in the web dashboard, uploading existing product photography, adding prices from the master price list, and setting up a folder structure so Marco could later add seasonal items without rebuilding anything from scratch. PosterBooking's templates meant neither of them needed design skills to get a clean, legible layout; they picked a template suited to a counter menu board, dropped in their logo and brand colours, and adjusted font size until it was readable from the back of the queue.

Staff training took about twenty minutes per site, mostly covering how to view which content was live and how to flag to Sian or Marco if an item sold out so it could be paused remotely rather than physically covered up. No till staff were given editing access themselves, keeping control centralised with the owners while still letting the floor team feed back instantly.

Life With PosterBooking

Day to day, menu management now happens from Sian's phone, often between serving customers. When a topping sells out mid-shift, she opens the dashboard, taps to deactivate that item on both sites at once, and it disappears from the live screen within seconds rather than requiring anyone to improvise with a marker pen.

Specials are now scheduled a week in advance. Sian sits down on a Sunday evening and builds out the week's rotating specials, pizza of the day and any promotional pricing, then schedules each one to appear automatically on the correct day, meaning nobody has to remember to update anything each morning. The window screen at Oldham Street runs a separate, slower-paced loop aimed at footfall, cycling through appetising photography and the online ordering QR code, something that was simply never possible with a static poster.

Staff reaction has been positive largely because a recurring daily chore has disappeared. The assistant managers no longer handwrite the specials board each morning, and nobody has needed the stepladder since the screens went in. Marco describes the shift as "one less thing to think about" during the morning opening routine, freeing attention for food prep and queue management instead.

The two locations have also started coordinating promotions for the first time. A new deal now goes live at both shops within the same minute rather than whenever each manager found time to rewrite a board, and Marco says the brand finally looks like one business rather than two loosely related takeaways.

The Results: Time and Money Saved

• Weekly signage admin time dropped from around 6 hours across both sites to under 1 hour, a saving of roughly 5 hours a week, or about 260 hours a year.
• Monthly print spend fell from around £140 to effectively £0, since menus, specials boards and allergen notices are now all digital.
• Sales of promoted specials rose noticeably once photography and schedule-based promotion replaced the handwritten chalkboard, with Marco estimating specials now sell through faster on days they're actively promoted on screen.
• Price and allergen updates that used to take up to two days to reach both sites now go live everywhere within seconds, reducing customer confusion and till disputes over outdated pricing.
• Staff no longer need to climb a stepladder or handwrite boards each morning, removing a task both assistant managers had flagged as their least favourite part of opening.

Across a year, the combination of reclaimed staff hours and eliminated print costs amounts to a meaningful saving for a small independent operation, before even accounting for the extra specials sales the more eye-catching screens have helped generate.

Testimonial

Switching to PosterBooking took the stress out of running two sites with one menu. I update both shops from my phone between orders now, and we haven't touched the stepladder or the laminator since. It sounds small, but getting that time and hassle back has made a real difference to how calm our mornings are.

Sian Oduya, Co-owner, Crust & Craft Pizza Co.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does PosterBooking cost for a small restaurant with a few screens?

PosterBooking is free to use for up to 10 screens, which covers most independent restaurants with one or two locations. A watermark appears on free screens after an initial three month trial period, and businesses that grow beyond 10 screens pay $6.49 per screen per month from the 11th screen onward.

What hardware do we need to run PosterBooking on our menu boards?

PosterBooking works with widely available, inexpensive hardware including Amazon Fire TV Stick, Amazon Signage Stick or Display, Android TV devices, Windows PCs, Chromebox and Raspberry Pi. Crust & Craft used Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K devices, which installed and ran reliably without any specialist equipment.

How long does it take to set up a new screen?

Setup is designed to take about two minutes per screen once the device is connected to power and a display. You install the PosterBooking app, pair it with your dashboard using an on-screen code, and the screen begins pulling content immediately.

Can we update menu prices and specials remotely across multiple locations?

Yes. Everything is managed from a single cloud dashboard, so content changes, price updates or new specials can be pushed to one screen or every screen across multiple sites at once, without visiting any location in person.

What happens if the internet goes down at one of our shops?

PosterBooking screens cache content locally, so they keep playing the most recently synced playlist even if the internet connection drops temporarily. Once connectivity is restored, the screen automatically syncs any new updates made in the dashboard.

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