Menura
Photograph a menu, extract every item and price with your own AI key, review, then export POS-ready data.
The problem it solves
Every restaurant onboarding, POS migration, delivery-platform signup, and print-menu update starts the same way: someone retypes the entire menu. Item by item, price by price, section by section. A 120-item menu with modifiers is an afternoon of data entry — and it happens again at every price change.
Metered document-AI APIs can read menus, but they charge per page forever, and your menu data flows through a third party's pipeline.
What you get
Structured menu extraction
Extract sections, item names, descriptions, prices, modifiers, allergens, and dietary tags from a photo, scan, or PDF.
Bring your own LLM key
Choose OpenAI, Anthropic, or local Ollama and switch providers any time in Settings.
Review before export
Edit any item, fix any price, and re-order or re-section everything before export.
Three export formats
Export nested CSV, flat POS-import CSV with auto-generated SKUs, or JSON.
Multi-menu library
Keep breakfast, lunch, dinner, and seasonal versions, and re-extract whenever prices change.
Self-hosted, one-time purchase
Runs on PHP 8+ with MySQL or SQLite on standard shared hosting, with no subscription or per-page metering beyond your own LLM cost.
Installable mobile app (PWA)
Add it to a phone or tablet home screen straight from the browser — a full-screen app served from your own server, with no app store involved. Business data is never cached offline, so what you see is always live.
Own It 2.0 — API, 2FA, backups, dark mode
Menura 2.0 adds the 2.0 owner layer. Upgrade by replacing the files — the database migrates itself, and it is still the same one-time purchase.
- REST API with an OpenAPI spec and signed webhooks
- Two-factor sign-in (TOTP)
- Email notifications through your own SMTP
- CSV import with a mandatory dry run
- One-click backups
- Dark mode
Own It 3.0 — works for your AI, not just for you
The re-rendered menu is the reason to buy twice: digitize the laminate, then download a clean branded PDF — your logo, your accent, prices typeset from data you reviewed. Price-update mode applies a percentage or fixed change with optional charm rounding and a before-and-after preview of every line.
- MCP endpoint — your AI works under the same guards you face
- Roles with email invitations and a last-admin guard
- Append-only audit trail across browser, API and agent
- Scheduled backups with a guided dry-run restore
- Optional single sign-on (OIDC)
Pricing — one-time, yours forever
- ✔ Full source included — PHP you can read and change
- ✔ No subscription. One payment, yours forever
- ✔ It never phones home
- ✔ Your data stays on your server
No reviews yet — so here is what we offer instead. Every competitor price on our comparison pages is source-linked and dated, and when a vendor’s price won’t load we say so rather than guess. See the sources for yourself →
Screenshots
Honest limitations
- No direct POS integration (CSV/JSON export, then manual import into your POS)
- Single-tenant: one admin login per installation
- No built-in OCR — relies entirely on the LLM's vision capability
- Handwritten or low-light photos may extract poorly; review before export
- Extraction accuracy is not guaranteed for any specific menu format or language
Two-minute web installer; PHP 8+ with MySQL or SQLite, standard shared-hosting compatible.
Covered in these guides
Typing 140 dishes and prices into a new POS is a day of work every restaurant does at least once. The one API vendor tracked for this won't publish a price and sits behind a $500 platform minimum. Here is the honest arithmetic.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need my own API key?
Yes — Menura requires an API key from OpenAI, Anthropic, or a local Ollama instance. Your key is stored in your own database and transmitted only in the outbound request you trigger; it's never logged, echoed back to the browser, or passed through any Menura infrastructure.
Will it run on shared hosting?
Yes. Menura requires PHP 8+ with pdo, curl, and fileinfo — extensions present on virtually all cPanel/Plesk hosts. Installation takes about two minutes through the web installer.
Does it push directly into my POS?
No — Menura exports CSV/JSON, which you import manually into your POS.
Is extraction fully automated?
No — Menura is human-in-the-loop by design; you review and correct everything on screen before export.
What about handwritten menus or PDFs?
Handwritten menus in poor lighting may extract poorly. PDFs are supported natively by Anthropic; OpenAI and Ollama treat PDFs as best-effort, so for best PDF results use Anthropic or convert pages to PNG first.