Digital menu board on an Android TV: the complete guide

What makes a menu board readable

Most menu boards fail for one reason: the text is too small for where people stand. A rule of thumb used by sign makers is one centimetre of capital-letter height per metre of viewing distance for comfortable reading; for a menu people glance at while queueing, be generous. On a 55-inch TV in landscape, 1 cm cap height is roughly a 40-pixel font at 1080p — which means a menu with 40 items in a tiny font is unreadable from the counter, however pretty it looks on your laptop.

Contrast matters as much as size. Dark text on a light panel or light text on a dark panel, no text over busy photos, and one accent colour for prices. PlainSignage’s menu widget scales the whole board to the screen, so what you see in the browser preview is what the TV shows.

• 3 m viewing distance → cap height ≥ 3 cm (about 8–10 items per column on a 55-inch screen)
• 5 m → ≥ 5 cm (5–6 items per column)
• 10 m → ≥ 10 cm (headline items only, use a second screen)
• Prices right-aligned in the accent colour, item names bold, descriptions one line

Portrait or landscape?

Landscape suits wide counters and boards with two or three columns (drinks left, food right). Portrait suits narrow spaces beside a counter and long single-column lists, and it reads like a printed menu. Most Android TVs can be wall-mounted in portrait; the menu board widget reflows its columns when you switch the playlist to portrait, and templates re-stack automatically.

If you have two screens, use one per category group rather than cramming everything on one: coffee and pastries on the left screen, lunch on the right.

The five menu designs

The menu widget ships with five designs so you can match the room without a designer. Classic is a printed-menu look with dotted leaders; Modern uses bold names and coloured price pills; Board is a chalkboard-style layout for cafés; Cards puts each item in a tile with an optional photo, good for burgers and bowls; Minimal is a clean list for bars and fine dining. All five support one to three columns, section headers, badges like “new”, “vegan” or “spicy”, and any currency.

• Classic — dotted leaders, serif option, restaurants
• Modern — coloured price pills, cafés and takeaways
• Board — chalkboard feel, coffee bars
• Cards — item tiles with photos, fast food
• Minimal — thin type, bars and hotels

Dayparting: breakfast, lunch, dinner

Make one slide per menu and let a schedule switch them: breakfast until 11:00, lunch until 16:00, dinner after that, and a happy-hour slide on Friday from 17:00. Schedules are per screen, so the terrace screen can differ from the bar. Add an opening-hours widget or the open/closed status to the same slide and the board also tells passers-by when the kitchen closes.

Updating prices from your phone

The console works on a phone. Open the slide, tap the item, change the price, publish: the TV updates within a second, and every screen that plays the same playlist updates with it. Sold out? Toggle the item off instead of deleting it. For seasonal menus keep a second playlist ready and switch the screen to it in one tap.

Menus from a Google Sheet

If prices live in a spreadsheet already, publish the sheet as CSV (File → Share → Publish to web) and point the Live sheet widget at it. The board refreshes on the interval you choose, so the kitchen or the accountant can maintain prices without touching the console. The same sheet can drive several screens with different filters.

Allergen icons and legal lines

EU rules require allergen information to be available; many venues show icons next to items. Use the badge field for short codes (G for gluten, L for lactose, V for vegan) and add a legend line at the bottom of the board, or link a QR code to your full allergen list. Keep the legend in the same font size as descriptions, not smaller.

Examples per cuisine

Coffee bar: Board design, two columns, drinks left with sizes as badges, pastries right, a promo tile for the seasonal drink. Pizzeria: Cards design with photos, three columns, one slide per category rotating every 12 seconds. Bar: Minimal design, portrait screen beside the taps, happy-hour schedule. Hotel breakfast: Classic design in three languages on a schedule that rotates the language every 20 seconds. Restaurants of every kind are covered on the restaurants page.