Table Of Contents
- Why Templates Beat a Blank Canvas
- The 15 Free Menu Board Templates
- How to Customise Any Template in Minutes
- Choosing the Right Template for Your Business
- Design Rules That Sell More Food
- Mistakes That Undo a Good Template
- Template Sizing Cheat Sheet
- How to Get Your Menu on the TV
- How Much Does This Cost?
- A Sample Weekly Update Routine
- Frequently Asked Questions
The fastest way to a professional digital menu board is a free template: pick a design, swap in your dishes and prices, and put it on your TV the same afternoon. Below are 15 template styles that work for cafes, takeaways, restaurants and food trucks, plus the design rules that make menus sell.
Why Templates Beat a Blank Canvas
Designing a menu board from scratch means decisions about fonts, colours, spacing and layout before you have typed a single price. A good template has already made those decisions well, so you only need to do the fun part: your food. And unlike a printed menu, when the price of chips inevitably changes, you edit one number instead of reprinting everything.
There is also a less obvious benefit: templates stop you second-guessing yourself at 11pm over whether the font looks "foodie enough". It does. Move on.
The 15 Free Menu Board Templates
All of these styles can be built free in Canva or Google Slides and shown on any TV with PosterBooking.
1. The Classic Diner
Three columns, bold headers, red and cream. Perfect for burgers, breakfasts and all-day breakfasts that become lunch.
2. The Minimalist Cafe
One column, lots of white space, elegant serif font. For flat whites and anything served on a wooden board.
3. The Dark and Moody
Black background, gold text, dramatic food photos. Steakhouses and cocktail bars, this is your moment.
4. The Chalkboard
Handwritten-style fonts on a slate background. All the charm of chalk, none of the chalk dust in the soup.
5. The Photo Grid
Big square food photos with prices overlaid. Let the food do the talking; it is better at it than most fonts.
6. The Bright and Bold
Vivid colours, huge prices, impossible to miss. Ideal for takeaways and late-night kebab royalty.
7. The Breakfast to Lunch Split
A template designed to swap automatically at a set time, so the pancakes politely hand over to the burgers at 11:30.
8. The Food Truck Special
Single screen, vertical sections, built to be read through a serving hatch in bright sunlight.
9. The Combo Dealer
Meal deals front and centre with strikethrough savings. "Burger + fries + drink" has never looked so persuasive.
10. The Healthy One
Green accents, calorie counts, lots of leaves. For salads, smoothies and virtue generally.
11. The Dessert Board
Pastel colours and enormous cake photography. Place it where people queue and watch willpower evaporate.
12. The Drinks Menu
Built for bars and coffee shops: columns of drinks, happy hour highlights, and room for the seasonal special.
13. The Kids Menu
Bright colours, playful fonts, pictures of everything. Because six-year-olds are the toughest food critics.
14. The Daily Specials Board
One big hero dish with today's date, designed to be edited every morning in under a minute.
15. The Multi-Screen Set
Matching templates across three screens: mains on one, drinks on another, desserts on the third. The full wall of temptation.
How to Customise Any Template in Minutes
- Open the template in Canva or Google Slides.
- Replace the dishes, descriptions and prices with your own.
- Swap the colours and fonts to match your brand.
- Export as an image or video at 1920 by 1080, the standard TV resolution.
- Upload to PosterBooking and send it to your screens.
Choosing the Right Template for Your Business
With 15 options on offer, picking one is easier with a quick filter by business type:
| If you run a... | Start with | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Coffee shop | The Minimalist Cafe or The Chalkboard | Calm, premium feel suits coffee pricing |
| Fast food or burger joint | The Classic Diner or The Bright and Bold | High contrast, readable at speed |
| Food truck | The Food Truck Special | Built for a single screen and bright sun |
| Steakhouse or cocktail bar | The Dark and Moody | Atmosphere matters as much as price |
| Family restaurant | The Kids Menu plus a Combo Dealer screen | Covers both audiences at once |
| Bakery or dessert shop | The Dessert Board | Photography does the selling |
If none of them feel quite right, remember templates are a starting point, not a contract. Mixing elements from two templates is entirely allowed, and nobody from the template police will show up.
Design Rules That Sell More Food
- Big prices, readable from the queue. If someone squints, you lose the sale.
- Three to five items per section. Choice paralysis is real and it is hungry.
- Photos earn their place. One great photo outsells ten mediocre ones.
- Highlight your most profitable dish. Box it, colour it, star it. Menus steer choices.
- Keep motion gentle. Slow fades are classy; spinning text is a cry for help.
Mistakes That Undo a Good Template
A great template can still be ruined at the editing stage. Watch for:
- Overcrowding the layout. Templates are designed with space for a reason; cramming in ten extra items defeats the design.
- Using stock photography next to real food photos. The mismatch is obvious and undermines trust.
- Ignoring brand colours entirely. A template is a structure, not a replacement for your identity.
- Exporting at the wrong resolution. A design built for portrait screens looks squashed on a landscape TV, and vice versa.
- Forgetting to proofread prices. A typo on a printed menu is embarrassing; a typo on a screen seen by every customer all day is a different scale of embarrassing.
Template Sizing Cheat Sheet
| Screen orientation | Export size | Common use |
|---|---|---|
| Landscape (widescreen) | 1920 x 1080 | Standard wall-mounted TVs |
| Portrait | 1080 x 1920 | Tall menu boards, narrow spaces |
| Square-ish video wall tile | 1080 x 1080 | Multi-screen grid layouts |
| Ultra-wide bar display | 3840 x 1080 | Drinks menus above a bar |
Getting this right the first time saves a surprisingly annoying second export later, usually discovered five minutes before opening.
How to Get Your Menu on the TV
- Install the free PosterBooking app on a Fire TV Stick, Android TV, Windows PC or Raspberry Pi connected to your TV.
- Pair the screen with your PosterBooking dashboard using the code on the TV.
- Upload your finished menu design.
- Set schedules so breakfast, lunch and dinner menus swap automatically.
- Update prices or specials any time from your phone or laptop.
How Much Does This Cost?
In most cases, close to nothing. Canva and Google Slides both offer generous free plans with plenty of templates and stock imagery, and PosterBooking is free for your first 10 screens. The only real spend for most small venues is a TV, if you do not already have one, and a modest player device such as a Fire Stick or Raspberry Pi. Compared with a sign-writer, a laminator and a roll of sticky tack, this is about as cheap as menu design gets.
A Sample Weekly Update Routine
To keep a templated menu board feeling current without turning it into a chore:
- Monday: check prices are still accurate and remove any sold-out items from the weekend
- Wednesday: refresh the "specials" section with a new dish or deal
- Friday: swap in a weekend-specific promotion, if relevant
- Monthly: revisit photography to retire anything looking tired
Ten minutes a week is usually enough once the template is in place, which is considerably less effort than reprinting a laminated board every time the price of avocados does something dramatic.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are free digital menu board templates actually free to use?
Yes, free digital menu board templates from Canva and Google Slides are genuinely free to use, including commercial use for a restaurant or cafe menu. Both platforms also offer paid upgrades for extra stock photos and fonts, but the free tiers are sufficient for building a complete menu board.
What size should a digital menu board image be?
A digital menu board image should be exported at 1920 by 1080 pixels for a standard widescreen TV, or 1080 by 1920 pixels if the screen is mounted in portrait orientation. Matching the export size to the screen's orientation avoids stretching or cropping when the design is displayed.
Can a digital menu change automatically by time of day?
Yes, a digital menu board can change automatically by time of day using scheduling features in signage software such as PosterBooking. This allows a breakfast menu, lunch menu and dinner menu to be built once and set to switch over without any manual intervention.
Can I use video instead of a static image on my menu board?
Yes, video can be used on a digital menu board instead of, or alongside, static images, and short clips of food being prepared are particularly effective at drawing attention. Motion should stay subtle so that prices and item names remain easy to read at a glance.
Which free design tool is best for building a menu board, Canva or Google Slides?
Canva is generally better for building a menu board because it offers more food-specific templates, fonts and built-in stock photography, while Google Slides is a solid lightweight alternative for simpler layouts. Both export easily to the image sizes needed for a TV screen.
How do I get a finished menu design onto an actual TV screen?
A finished menu design gets onto a TV screen by installing free signage software such as PosterBooking onto a connected device, such as a Fire TV Stick, Android device, Windows PC or Raspberry Pi, and uploading the design through the dashboard. The screen then displays the menu and can be updated remotely at any time.
Do I need design experience to customise a menu board template?
No, customising a menu board template does not require design experience, since templates already handle layout, spacing and font pairing. Most changes involve replacing text, prices and photos within the existing structure, which takes only basic familiarity with Canva or Google Slides.
Ready to get your menu on the big screen? Create your free account and your first 10 screens are free. Your chips deserve this.