Guide · In-store
QR Codes in Your Venue: Where to Put Them and How to Design Them
A QR code is the cheapest, fastest bridge between your physical venue and your ordering page. The square itself is trivial — TypeMenu generates one for you in your dashboard. What makes the difference is where you place it, what you write next to it, and whether anyone can be bothered to take their phone out and scan. This guide is the part that actually matters.
1. Start with the QR you already have
Inside your TypeMenu dashboard, the Share page gives you a high-resolution QR code for your ordering page, alongside the URL. You can download it as a PNG for design work or as a print-ready PDF, or send it straight to your printer from the browser. This means you do not need a QR generator service, a designer to size the image, or any technical setup at all. Skip the next section if you have already exported it.
Use the PDF for anything you are printing. A PDF preserves the QR as vector data, which means it stays crisp at any size — from a 2cm sticker on a takeaway bag to an A2 poster in your window. The PNG is fine for digital use (sharing in a WhatsApp group, embedding on your website) but can pixelate if you scale it up beyond its native resolution.
Every section below assumes you have the file ready. The rest of this guide is about where to put it and what to say alongside it — because those two decisions are what determine whether anyone actually scans.
2. The four highest-impact placements
Not every surface in your venue is equal. A QR works when the customer has a reason to scan, the time to scan, and a phone in their hand. The four placements below tick all three boxes. If you do nothing else, do these.
Table tents (dine-in only)
A small folded card on every table, sized roughly 10cm × 15cm, with the QR on at least two faces so it is visible whichever way someone is sitting. The customer is already seated, already comfortable, and their phone is on the table. The angle is to get them ordering ahead next time, not for this meal — frame it that way in the copy.
Print on coated card so it survives spills. Replace any tent that gets bent or stained — a tatty card signals that nobody is paying attention, and customers extend that judgement to your food.
Window signage
A poster at eye level facing the street, large enough to read from the pavement. A4 is the minimum; A3 is better. This works at three moments: when you are closed and passers-by want to order for later, when there is a queue and someone would rather collect, and when a new customer is deciding whether to commit to coming in.
Position it so the QR is at chest height (roughly 1.4-1.5m from the ground) — high enough to scan without bending, low enough to scan without reaching. Avoid placing it behind reflective glass that faces direct sun, or behind condensation-prone windows in winter, both of which kill scan reliability.
Takeaway packaging
A sticker on the bag, a printed insert in the box, or the QR on the receipt stapled to the top. The customer opens the bag at home, sees the QR, and reorders the next time the same craving hits. This is the single most under-used placement in the industry — most takeaways send their food out completely unbranded.
Stickers cost a few pence each in bulk and require zero changes to your existing packaging supplier. If you order custom-printed bags or boxes, build the QR into the artwork — printed at scale, the cost per unit is negligible.
Printed flyers and leaflets
Leaflet drops in your delivery radius, flyers at neighbouring businesses, inserts in community newsletters. A flyer without a QR is asking the customer to type a URL — most will not. The QR collapses that friction to a single scan.
Keep the design clean: a strong image of your food, a one-line description of what you do, the QR, and the address. Resist the urge to list your full menu — the QR is your menu now.
3. Design rules that decide whether it actually scans
A QR that does not scan first time is a QR that does not get scanned. Phone cameras are forgiving but not infinitely so. The following rules sound fussy until you have watched a customer give up after two attempts and put their phone away.
- Minimum 2.5cm × 2.5cm at scanning distance. For a table tent or a sticker scanned from 30cm away, 2.5cm is the floor. For a window poster scanned from across the pavement (1-2m away), go to 8cm or larger. The rule of thumb: the QR should be roughly 1/10th the scanning distance.
- Keep the quiet zone clear. The white border around the QR is not decoration — phone cameras use it to find the code. Never crop into it, and never print on a busy patterned background that breaks the contrast. A solid white square behind the QR is always safe.
- Dark on light, not the reverse. Inverted QRs (light squares on a dark background) confuse many phone cameras. Stick to the default black-on-white. If you must brand the code, only change the colour of the dark squares — never the light ones — and keep contrast high.
- Test every printed batch with a real phone, in the actual location. Daylight near a window scans differently to dim ambient lighting at a corner table. Take an iPhone and an Android out to the table, scan from a normal seated distance, and verify the page loads. Do this before you print 200 of anything.
- Print the URL underneath. Some customers will not scan a QR — they distrust them, their camera is playing up, or they are on an older phone. A readable URL underneath catches those people and costs you nothing.
4. The words next to the QR matter more than the QR itself
A QR with no copy is a black square. Customers will not scan something unless they know what they get on the other side and why it is worth the effort. The label is doing the persuasion — the QR is just the mechanism.
Tell them what is behind it. "Scan to view our menu" tells a customer what to expect. "Order ahead — skip the queue next time" tells them why they would bother. The second always outperforms the first.
Some copy that works, by placement:
- Table tent: "Loved it? Order ahead next time. Ready when you are — no waiting at the counter."
- Window poster: "Order online for collection or delivery. Ready in 20 minutes." Add opening hours below for when you are closed.
- Takeaway sticker: "Order direct next time — same food, no app required."
- Flyer: "Scan to order — delivery across [area] in 30 minutes." Lead with the speed and the radius, since those are what a flyer recipient is silently asking about.
Notice what is missing: the word app, instructions for how to use a QR ("open your camera, point at the code, tap the link"), and small print. Customers know how QRs work. They do not need to be taught. They need a reason.
5. How to tell if any of it is working
You do not need a marketing dashboard to measure this. The simplest indicator is the trend in your direct order volume over the four to eight weeks after you put QR codes in place. If it is climbing, the placements are doing their job. If it is flat, something needs to change — usually the copy, occasionally the placement.
Ask new direct-ordering customers how they found you. A single line on the order confirmation page ("How did you hear about us? — table tent / window / takeaway bag / online / friend") gives you qualitative signal that your analytics cannot. You will learn very quickly which placements your customers actually notice.
If you want to get more precise, generate a separate QR for each placement using a URL with a query parameter (for example, ?src=window or ?src=tent). You can then count scans per source in your web analytics. This is optional — for most independent operators, the order volume trend plus the order-confirmation question is enough to make good decisions.
Your QR code is ready in your TypeMenu dashboard.
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