How Digital Menu Boards Keep Customers in Your Bar Longer

How Digital Menu Boards Keep Customers in Your Bar Longer

By Bryce Patterson

As a bar owner or manager, you probably know that keeping patrons in your bar longer is one of the biggest revenue drivers in the business. Digital menu boards are a great way to increase sales, and you might be surprised by the ways that they encourage your customers to hang out longer.

How, you ask? Read on.

Digital Menu Boards Encourage Customers to Try Different Menu Items

A digital menu board makes the range of your offerings super clear and is a great tool for highlighting special offers and exciting new options. Whether you’ve just tapped a new beer or are running a special on appetizers, you can showcase these clearly, easily, and in the most appetizing way possible with high-quality imagery. 

Not only that- one in five customers make an unplanned purchase from a digital menu board, which promotes longer visits. This is particularly true when customers are part of a group. After all, if one member of a party orders another item, others are more likely to follow. 

On your end, a digital menu board offers the ability to save on paper and printing costs as well as make quick changes to your menu. Want to offer an appetizer special for a couple of hours to clear out inventory? You can communicate this both cost-effectively and instantly, encouraging customers to add one more item to their ticket.

Digital Menu Boards Cut Down Wait Times

Nobody likes waiting, especially on a night out. Digital menu boards allow customers to effectively order in a quicker amount of time and can cut wait times at your bar by up to 35% percent. This benefit works to keep your customers happy and cut down on the amount of time they feel they’re spending to order.

Digital Menu Boards Showcase the Experiential Side of Your Bar

Not every patron shows up at your bar expecting a creative happy hour or an exciting new menu item, but a digital menu board is the perfect way to foreground the events and specials that set your location apart. What started as a casual drink-and-dash can quickly turn into a meal or a longer hang-out based on information on your digital menu board. 

Young people (Millenials and Gen Zs in particular) value unique experiences and are more likely to spend money on experience than possessions. If you’re trying to draw a younger crowd, putting this information front and center is a great way to capture their attention.

A digital menu board is also an easy way to highlight loyalty programs, memberships, and other specific programs to bring customers back again and again. 

Digital Menu Boards Make it Super Easy to Order

You’re at a bar and enjoying the space, but the place is packed, and you and your friends are struggling to place an order. Eventually, you decide to move on to another location.

Sound familiar? Difficulty ordering is a huge turnoff for your patrons.

Digital menu boards are viewed 660% more than their static counterparts and can be read at a greater distance, which massively streamlines the ordering process. Rather than leafing through a physical menu, digital menu boards make it easier for customers to glance at the range of offerings while in line, pick something to order, and get back to their party. 

Streamlining the flow of customers improves the experience of everyone involved. Your staff will appreciate the more natural pace, your customers will find it easier to choose exactly what they want, and you’ll appreciate the extra money spent. 

Digital Menu Boards Highlight Your Social Presence

Social proof is the influence that the choices of people around us have on our own decision-making, and it’s important to understand for any kind of business. For example, we’re generally more likely to enter a restaurant with a bustling vibe than one that is entirely empty.

We are more likely to see a movie if it seems like everyone around us has already seen it. Our digital menu integrations with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Yelp, and Google Reviews encourage your customers to interact with your online platform by showcasing your positive online interactions in-store.

This works to grow your social proof! Additionally, many bars offer discounts to customers who follow their social media accounts and check in at their location, and it’s really easy to do this with a digital menu board. 

How Digital Menu Boards Keep Customers in Your Bar Longer

Not sure if you want to offer a discount? You can still foreground your social presence with highlights from your business Instagram, images from recent events, and customer testimonials. This comes back to digital menu boards encouraging customers to try a range of menu items- after all, a glowing recommendation of a particular cocktail or menu item is a great way to convince patrons to experience something new and different. 

Digital Menu Boards Build Community Around Your Brand

Chances are, your bar isn’t just trying to draw in new patrons. Returning customers are the lifeblood of any business and with good reason. After all, your regulars are likely to come in more and stay longer- in fact, while repeat customers are probably only about 15% of your patrons, they can make up 30% of your revenue.

You can tailor the content of your digital menu board to your regulars, improving their experience and giving them the feeling of being “home” whenever they come to visit. Whether it’s weekly highlights, shoutouts to star customers or any other way of highlighting that shared culture, a digital menu is the perfect tool for building those relationships.


Ready to go digital? Evergreen offers everything you need to increase sales and improve the customer experience with a powerful set of digital menu board tools that include social media functionality, inventory management, mobile-friendly menu design, and so much more. But don’t take it from us. See what our customers have to say about Evergreen here.

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE...