The menu is rarely the only system in the building. The till has a catalogue, the website has a page, the booking book has a name and a time, and someone is still pasting allergen notes between them. Integrations exist so those tools can use the recipe record instead of a private copy.
What is already a connection, before any POS
A lot of venues say they need an integration when they need a surface. These are available without a POS connector:
- QR codes that open the live menu
- Website embeds, including WordPress
- API tokens on every active workspace, including Free
"No POS integrations" on Free and Essential means Square, Collins, OpenTable and Shopify. It does not mean the menu is trapped in the admin.
Square, Shopify and the booking books
On Starter and above, you can link recipes to Square catalogue items, push allergen attributes and keep pricing aligned from Integrations.
Shopify is in beta, and only when it is enabled for the workspace. You link recipes to products and Quiteful pushes contains and may-contain allergens, plus dietary flags, into the quiteful metafield namespace. It is a product feed of allergen facts, not a second menu you edit in Shopify admin.
Collins and OpenTable, also from Starter, bring reservation context alongside the menu guests already trust. OpenTable menu push stays partner-gated: sync reservations and reviews where your partnership covers it, and do not assume every OpenTable account can receive a full menu publish.
For a hotel or attraction, the booking event can also send the guest a personal menu link. That flow is part of multi-menu destinations, with a signed webhook rather than a spreadsheet export.
The API when you need your own screen
The REST API is JSON for menus, recipes, allergens and nutrition, with bearer auth, an OpenAPI spec and a Postman collection. It is there for a kiosk, a delivery partner or an internal tool that should not scrape the guest page. Webhooks fire when menus, recipes or locations change, so the other system can refresh instead of polling all day.
Version history on the API is for rollback and audit, not for guests. Guests should still be looking at the live page.
Keep one record
Every connector is a reason to stop retyping. If Square, the website PDF and the allergen folder can disagree, they will. Real-time menu updates describe the guest-facing half of that. Integrations are the half that talks to software you already pay for.
Allergen data pushed to a till or a shop is only as honest as the recipe. When a supplier reformulates, update the dish first. The connected systems should follow, which is the habit in when suppliers change recipes.
A practical next step
Put the live menu on the website and the tables before you buy a connector. Then link the till if staff are double-keying prices or allergen attributes. Read the plan notes on pricing so POS connectors are not a surprise on Free.
See integrations, or start with the REST API if you are building the screen yourselves.