How to add a Halloween campaign to your restaurant menu

To add a Halloween campaign to your restaurant menu, choose the offer first, prepare the dish hidden on the QR menu, then turn the banner and campaign image on by hand on October 30. Halloween falls on Saturday, October 31, 2026. From September 24 you have about five weeks, enough time to add one short campaign to the table QR without reprinting the paper menu.

A QR menu is useful for a short campaign because price and visibility changes reach the table code without a new print run. If you need the basic setup first, what a QR menu is and how to create one explains the foundation. Here we are not building a separate Halloween page. We are opening and closing the dish, the announcement and the discount in the same menu.

Choose what guests will see first

For most venues, Halloween is either an announcement or a themed dish. If you only want to announce a costume night, a pumpkin dessert you already sell, or a booking call, you do not need a new product. Guests who scan the table code see the announcement banner or the campaign image. Guests using paper menus hear the offer from the floor team.

Adding a dish is a larger job. The name, description, photo, sale price and kitchen prep all need a clear decision. Do not load several new plates onto the same weekend. One announcement plus one themed dish is enough for most rooms. Do not remove the usual bestseller just to make space for a theme; regulars should still find what they came for on October 31. The menu engineering guide is useful when you need to keep a strong seller and add a seasonal line beside it.

For broader menu shape, category order and readable prices, use what to consider when preparing a restaurant menu. The Halloween item should not turn the whole menu upside down. It should be one clear seasonal line that the kitchen can plate comfortably.

Add the dish early and keep it hidden

Create the themed dish from the product form by October 10. Before you fill the rest of the details, set "Visible on the QR menu?" to no. That way guests do not see a half-written item while you are still entering the name, description and price. The academy lesson on adding and editing products shows the form fields on screen.

Do not mix up the two visibility fields. "Visible?" controls the till list. "Visible on the QR menu?" controls the menu opened from the table code. You can leave a dish visible on the till for a test and keep it hidden on the QR menu. If guests should not see it yet, the QR visibility stays off.

The name and description should help guests order the right thing. If the Halloween name is a joke, use the description to say plainly what is on the plate or in the glass. Shoot the product before service, in the same form a guest will receive. A clear phone photo is often enough; the goal is for guests to understand what sits next to the price.

You add the product early so you do not delete it on November 1. When the campaign ends, hide it on the QR menu. The name, photo and price stay on the record. Next October you review the same item instead of building it from scratch.

Manage the banner and image by hand

The announcement banner sits in QR menu settings, under add-ons. You write the copy in "Announcement text" and guests do not see it while "Enable announcement banner" is off. Scrolling text is the sibling on the same card. Do not run the banner and scrolling text on the same night; one clear sentence reads better on a phone.

The campaign image sits under Campaigns > QR code campaign. You can upload up to five images. If "Show image" is off, the image does not appear in the menu. Neither this screen nor the announcement banner has a start or end date. You are responsible for turning the switches on and off. The academy lesson on QR menu helps with the menu side of that check.

Have the text and image ready by October 17 and leave both switches off. The text should answer three things: what is available, which nights it runs, and what the guest should do. A sentence such as "Pumpkin dessert is on the menu Friday and Saturday night. Ask your server at the table." does the job without turning into a poster.

On October 24, scan the table QR on your own phone. Check that the dish is still hidden, the text is ready and the image is still off. On Friday, October 30 before service, repeat the same check with the dish, banner and image open in the guest view.

Check cost before you discount

If the themed dish sells at its normal price, leave happy hour alone. If you plan to discount it, read the cost first. The guides to food cost and the food cost calculator help you check portion cost, waste and sale price before the weekend. A full Halloween room should not quietly thin your margin.

Happy hour lives under Campaigns > Happy hour. The "Happy hour price" on the product form replaces the sale price on the weekdays and hours you set. The QR menu shows "Happy hour devam ediyor!" with the hour range, and the till uses the same price.

This rule does not store a calendar date. It repeats by weekday and time. For Friday, October 30 and Saturday, October 31, tick Friday and Saturday and enter your service hours. If the switch stays on, the same discount returns on the next matching day. If you do not turn happy hour off on Sunday, November 1 morning, the discount returns on Friday, November 6.

The second limit matters just as much. Happy hour applies to every product whose happy hour price differs from its sale price during that window. If only the Halloween dish should be discounted, keep the other happy hour prices equal to their sale prices. To model the sales effect, use the discount and campaign impact calculator.

Open it on October 30, close it on November 1

On Friday, October 30, before the first table sits, assign the campaign check to one named person. That person should check product visibility, the announcement banner, the campaign image and the happy hour switch if you use it. None of these screens starts or ends the campaign automatically.

1. Set "Visible on the QR menu?" to yes on the Halloween dish and check that it is visible on the till as well.
2. Turn on "Enable announcement banner" and leave "Show image" on in the QR code campaign screen.
3. If you are discounting, confirm that happy hour has only Friday and Saturday selected.
4. Scan the table code on a phone and confirm that the dish, price, banner and image look right.

On Sunday, November 1 morning, reverse the list. Turn the announcement banner off, turn "Show image" off, hide the dish on the QR menu and turn happy hour off. Do not delete the product. A hidden product stays ready for the next campaign.

While the weekend is still fresh, open the sales reports for October 30-31. Put an ordinary Friday and Saturday from mid-October next to it. The report shows product quantities; there is no separate QR-scan counter for the banner. Read the numbers together with what the kitchen ran out of and what guests ignored.

You can use the same rhythm for New Year. Since December 31, 2026 is a Thursday, the October 17 check becomes December 17 for that campaign.

Halloween 2026 countdown

Continue in the academy

If you want to see the work on screen, these Ritapos Academy lessons walk through the related forms.

• Adding and editing products
• QR menu
• Sales reports

To see how the menu looks on the table, open the free QR menu page.