Building a Restaurant Menu Plugin for WordPress
Posted on 19th June 2023
The restaurant industry is booming and shows no signs of slowing down. In order to keep up with the competition, it’s important for restaurants to have an online presence. One of the best ways to do this is by creating a WordPress plugin that will showcase your menu.
There are a few things to consider when building a restaurant menu plugin for WordPress. First, you need to decide what features you want your plugin to have. Do you want it to be simply a list of your menu items? Or do you want it to be interactive, with photos and descriptions?
Once you’ve decided on the features you want, you need to start coding. If you’re not a developer, you can hire one to help you. Or, you can use a drag-and-drop plugin builder like Plugify.
Once your plugin is built, you need to test it to make sure it works properly. And then, you need to promote it. You can do this by creating a landing page for your plugin and submitting it to directories like WordPress.org.
By following these steps, you can create a restaurant menu plugin for WordPress that will help you stand out from the competition.
Step 1: Decide What Features You Want
The first step in creating a restaurant menu plugin for WordPress is to decide what features you want it to have. Do you want it to be simply a list of your menu items? Or do you want it to be interactive, with photos and descriptions?
Some other features to consider include the ability to filter menu items by type (e.g. appetizers, entrees, desserts), the ability to search for specific menu items, and the ability to add items to a cart or order online.
Step 2: Start Coding
Once you’ve decided on the features you want, it’s time to start coding. If you’re not a developer, you can hire one to help you. Or, you can use a drag-and-drop plugin builder like Plugify.
With Plugify, you can create a WordPress plugin without writing any code. Simply select the features you want, and Plugify will generate the code for you.
Step 3: Test Your Plugin
Once your plugin is built, you need to test it to make sure it works properly. The best way to do this is to install it on a test site and try it out.
If you find any bugs, you can fix them by editing the code or hiring a developer to help you.
Step 4: Promote Your Plugin
Once your plugin is built and tested, you need to promote it. You can do this by creating a landing page for your plugin and submitting it to directories like WordPress.org.
By following these steps, you can create a restaurant menu plugin for WordPress that will help you stand out from the competition.
Assuming you have a basic understanding of plugin development for WordPress, let’s continue building our restaurant menu plugin. In the last section, we created a custom post type for our menu items and added some basic fields. In this section, we’ll add some more fields and start displaying our menu on the front-end of the website.
First, we’ll add a few more fields to our menu item post type. We’ll add a field for the price of the menu item, a field for the category it belongs to, and a field for a short description. To do this, we’ll add the following code to our plugin:
function my_restaurant_menu_item_fields( $fields ) {
$fields[‘price’] = array(
‘name’ => ‘Price’,
‘label’ => __( ‘Price’, ‘my-restaurant’ ),
‘type’ => ‘text’,
‘required’ => true,
);
$fields[‘category’] = array(
‘name’ => ‘Category’,
‘label’ => __( ‘Category’, ‘my-restaurant’ ),
‘type’ => ‘select’,
‘options’ => array(
‘appetizer’ => __( ‘Appetizer’, ‘my-restaurant’ ),
‘main-course’ => __( ‘Main Course’, ‘my-restaurant’ ),
‘dessert’ => __( ‘Dessert’, ‘my-restaurant’ ),
),
‘required’ => true,
);
$fields[‘description’] = array(
‘name’ => ‘Description’,
‘label’ => __( ‘Description’, ‘my-restaurant’ ),
‘type’ => ‘textarea’,
‘required’ => false,
);
return $fields;
}
add_filter( ‘my_restaurant_menu_item_fields’, ‘my_restaurant_menu_item_fields’ );
This code adds three new fields to our menu item post type: price, category, and description. The price and category fields are both required, while the description field is not.
Now that we’ve added these fields, we need to display them on the front-end of the website. To do this, we’ll create a file called single-my-restaurant-menu-item.php in our plugin’s folder and add the following code:
<article id="post-” >
<?php the_title( '
‘, ‘
‘ ); ?>
$value ) {
if ( $field_name == ‘price’ ) {
echo ‘
‘ . __( ‘Price’, ‘my-restaurant’ ) . ‘: ‘ . $value . ‘
‘;
} elseif ( $field_name == ‘category’ ) {
echo ‘
‘ . __( ‘Category’, ‘my-restaurant’ ) . ‘: ‘ . $value . ‘
‘;
} elseif ( $field_name == ‘description’ ) {
echo ‘
‘ . __( ‘Description’, ‘my-restaurant’ ) . ‘: ‘ . $value . ‘
‘;
}
}
?>
This code will loop through all of the fields we added and output them on the front-end of the website.
Now that we’ve added our fields and created a template to display them, let’s add a shortcode to output our menu on the front-end of the website. To do this, we’ll add the following code to our plugin:
function my_restaurant_menu_shortcode( $atts, $content = null ) {
$atts = shortcode_atts( array(
‘id’ => ”,
), $atts, ‘my_restaurant_menu’ );
if ( empty( $atts[‘id’] ) ) {
return ”;
}
$menu_items = get_posts( array(
‘post_type’ => ‘my_restaurant_menu_item’,
‘posts_per_page’ => -1,
‘meta_query’ => array(
array(
‘key’ => ‘menu’,
‘value’ => $atts[‘id’],
),
),
) );
if ( empty( $menu_items ) ) {
return ”;
}
$output = ”;
$output .= ‘
- ‘;
- ‘;
$output .= get_the_title( $menu_item->ID );
$output .= ‘
foreach ( $menu_items as $menu_item ) {
$output .= ‘
‘;
}
$output .= ‘
‘;
return $output;
}
add_shortcode( ‘my_restaurant_menu’, ‘my_restaurant_menu_shortcode’ );
This code adds a new shortcode that we can use to output our menu on the front-end of the website. The shortcode will take an “id” attribute, which should be set to the menu post ID.
To use the shortcode, we can add the following code to any post or page on our website:
[my_restaurant_menu id=”123″]
This will output a list of all menu items that belong to the menu with an ID of 123.
And that’s it! In this article, we’ve continued building our restaurant menu plugin. We’ve added some more fields to our menu item post type and created a shortcode to output our menu on the front-end of the website. In the next section, we’ll add some CSS to style our menu.
