Duckhub Blog
Guides, news and comparisons to help your restaurant grow online.
- Guides
Thanksgiving restaurant menu: prix fixe or to-go feasts, priced so the holiday actually pays
Thanksgiving 2026 falls on Thursday, 26 November. Diners are shifting from eating out to ordering the meal home: Popmenu's 2025 survey found 53% planned takeout or delivery for Thanksgiving dinner and only 5% planned to dine in. This guide helps restaurant owners pick a format (prix fixe, family-style or to-go feast), price it from food cost, follow USDA reheating rules and run a six-week timeline.
By Duckhub TeamOct 5, 202614 min read - Guides
Cafe and coffee shop name ideas: 280 names, plus the checks that tell you if one is free to use
A list of 280 cafe and coffee shop names is the easy half. The half that saves money is the clearance protocol: search the USPTO database before the state registry, the state registry before the domain, and know that registering an LLC or a DBA gives you no trademark rights at all. This guide has both, plus the Google Business Profile naming rules that get profiles suspended.
By Duckhub TeamSep 11, 202618 min read - Guides
Ghost kitchen menus in 2026: what still works now the shakeout has taken the hype with it
The infrastructure bet on ghost kitchens collapsed between 2023 and 2024, but delivery-only menus did not go away with it. This guide covers what a ghost kitchen actually is versus a virtual brand, what the closures proved, how a delivery menu differs from a dine-in one, what platforms now require of virtual brands, and where the money goes on a $30 order once a 25% commission is taken.
By Duckhub TeamSep 7, 202615 min read - Guides
Catering menu guide: the per-head math that decides whether a 50-guest event makes money
A catering menu is priced per head, committed before the event, and produced for a guaranteed count, which makes it arithmetic rather than a list of dishes. This guide covers the six service styles and what each one costs in labour, portion planning with sourced institutional numbers, how to build three-tier packages, a transparent per-head calculation, the nine major US allergens, and the contract clauses that stop a late cancellation from becoming your loss.
By Duckhub TeamSep 4, 202618 min read - News
A QR menu app is now in ChatGPT's Plugins directory, so restaurants can edit menus by chatting
Disclosure first: this is our own product. The Duckhub QR Menu app was listed in ChatGPT's Plugins directory in August 2026, which means a restaurant operator can now build, translate, reprice and publish a live QR menu without leaving a chat window. The wider story is the one worth watching: restaurant software is moving from things assistants describe to things assistants operate.
By Duckhub TeamSep 2, 20266 min read - Comparisons
Digital menu boards vs QR menus: we sell one of these two, so here is the honest comparison
Duckhub sells QR menus, which is exactly why this comparison spends as much space on what a screen does better. The short version: a board broadcasts a small amount of information to everybody with no guest action, a QR menu delivers a much larger amount to each guest who chooses to pull it. Three commercial screens cost roughly $4,900-$5,500 in year one from published prices; the same menu behind a QR code costs about $17. Neither number decides the question on its own.
By Duckhub TeamAug 31, 202615 min read - Guides
Fall and Oktoberfest menu ideas: the six-week season, planned as an operation not a recipe list
Almost every fall menu article is a list of recipes for a home kitchen. This one treats the season as what it actually is for an operator: a six-week window with a launch date, a purchasing commitment, and an exit. It covers the 2026 calendar, what Oktoberfestbier legally means under its EU protected designation, why the beer served in Munich is not the style most US bars pour, how many items to add before purchasing breaks, and how to close the season without a walk-in full of squash.
By Duckhub TeamAug 26, 202614 min read - Guides
Well, rail, call and top-shelf: bar drink terminology from the side that pays for the bottle
Most bar glossaries are written for the guest. This one is written for whoever signs the liquor invoice. It defines well, rail, call, premium and top-shelf and explains why three of those five are not really a ladder, gives the pour cost formula with the arithmetic shown, covers the service terms that need a written house spec, and lays out corkage and BYOB law across California, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, where the rules genuinely contradict each other.
By Duckhub TeamAug 24, 202616 min read - Comparisons
Static vs dynamic QR codes: the choice that decides whether a price change means a reprint
The short answer: use dynamic for anything that changes, static for anything permanent. But the interesting part is the third option most vendor comparisons never mention, where a free static code pointed at a subdomain you own gives you dynamic behaviour with no subscription and no third party in the redirect path. This guide covers the technical difference, the reprint arithmetic, the expiry question, and where each option actually wins.
By Duckhub TeamAug 21, 202614 min read - Guides
How to price a restaurant menu: one dish, from the recipe card to the number on the page
Menu price = plate cost divided by target food cost percentage. That formula is the easy part. This guide runs one dish end to end through all five formulas, gives the real 2024 food and labour medians the National Restaurant Association published from 900+ operators, classifies items with the Kasavana and Smith matrix, and separates the pricing psychology with evidence behind it from the two most repeated pieces of menu folklore.
By Duckhub TeamAug 19, 202618 min read - Guides
Bistro, gastropub, fast casual: the types of restaurants, and why the labels keep colliding
A gastropub is not the opposite of casual dining. It is a venue style, and casual dining is an industry segment, and one restaurant is usually both at once. This guide separates the two classification layers, defines 16 restaurant types with dictionary and industry sources, compares them in a single table, explains why average check by segment is not publicly published, and debunks the Russian origin story for bistro.
By Duckhub TeamAug 17, 202620 min read - Guides
Who does what in a restaurant: the kitchen brigade, decoded for a team of six
The classical brigade de cuisine defined a station for every task. Most of those titles are gone, and the ones that survive mean something different now. This guide maps each classical position to its 2026 equivalent, gives realistic rosters for 5, 15 and 40-person kitchens, settles the busser vs food runner vs server assistant confusion, lists BLS median wages from the May 2025 release, and explains the federal tip-pool rules that decide who can legally share gratuities.
By Duckhub TeamAug 12, 202613 min read