AI tools for restaurants earn their keep on the marketing that comes back every week: this month's specials, a reprinted menu page, a better photo of the new dish, tonight's caption, a card asking guests for a review. Each of those jobs has details the finished piece must get right, from the raw-food footnote on the menu to the plain, honest wording on a review card. AI phone answering, online ordering and inventory software are a different kind of product and aren't covered here.
AI tools for restaurants, job by job
These are the marketing jobs where AI tools for restaurant owners fit, with one tool for each. Toybox AI prices are current as of September 2026 and can change.
| Job | Tool to try | Cost | Check before it goes out |
|---|---|---|---|
| Menu page or menu board | Flyer Maker, Tall size, Packed layout | 80 credits at 1K, 90 at 2K, 100 at 4K | Every price, allergen note and footnote |
| Specials, catering and holiday flyers | Flyer Maker | 80 credits at 1K | Offer end date, conditions next to any "free" |
| Fixing light and clutter in a food photo | Smart Editor (Pro plan) | 85 credits for an HD edit | The dish still matches the plate you serve |
| Removing one small distraction | Magic Eraser in Google Photos | No subscription needed | Plate edges and glassware |
| Captions, emails, replies to reviews | AI Writer | 5 credits a draft | Hours and prices match the flyer |
| Review request cards | Flyer Maker | 80 credits at 1K | Nothing offered in exchange for a review |
Menus that keep the safety notes
An AI-made menu needs the same safety notes as one you typed yourself, so put them in your description word for word. Many health departments ask restaurants that serve raw or undercooked animal foods (a burger cooked to order, steak tartare, oysters on the half shell) to mark those items and add a reminder. A common form is an asterisk next to the dish that points to a footnote: "Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish, or eggs may increase your risk of foodborne illness." Many also ask for a written note when one of the nine major food allergens (milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, soybeans and sesame) is an ingredient in unpackaged food. Rules differ by state and city, so check your local health department for the exact wording it expects.
Chains with many locations may also need calorie counts on the menu or menu board, so check those rules before you reprint one.
Flyer Maker can set a one-page menu of about 12 items with prices. Choose the Tall size, since the Packed layout fits more text, and type the menu section by section with the footnote at the end:
Dinner menu for Tansyholm Kitchen, 418 Harbor Road. Starters: Charred broccolini with lemon $9, Steak tartare with toast points $16*, Roasted beet salad with candied walnuts (contains tree nuts) $11. Mains: Wrenfield burger (can be cooked to order) $15*, Pan-roasted salmon with dill potatoes $24, Mushroom risotto $19. Desserts: Olive oil cake $8, Dark chocolate pot de creme $9. Footnote at the bottom in small type: "*Consuming raw or undercooked meats, poultry, seafood, shellfish, or eggs may increase your risk of foodborne illness." Second line: "Please tell your server about any food allergies." Reservations: call 555-0134. Cream background, dark green section headings, simple serif type.Check every price against your register and every asterisk against the kitchen before you print. For longer menus, menu boards and dish descriptions, see the AI menu maker guide.
Specials, catering and holiday flyers
A specials flyer sells one offer, and the words around a "free" offer need the most care. Put every condition of a "free" or "buy one, get one" deal right next to the offer, in the same size type, not in a footnote behind an asterisk. Keep the item a guest buys at its regular price, not a raised one. A "third taco free" week shouldn't come with a higher taco price.
Put the conditions in the description so they land beside the offer:
Tuesday Taco Night at Casa Tulevera, 90 Mill Street. Every Tuesday through Tuesday, November 24, 4 PM to 9 PM. Buy two tacos, get the third one free. Dine-in only, one free taco per guest, not valid with other offers: print these conditions directly under the offer. Street corn $5, horchata $3. Order ahead at 555-0141. Bold orange and deep teal colors with a photo of three tacos on a wooden board.Choose Restaurant as the "Flyer type" under "More options". The whole flyer can also be in Spanish: accents and the opening ¿ and ¡ marks come out correctly, but read every word anyway. For headlines by occasion (happy hour, delivery launch, live music night), see the restaurant flyer ideas and wording. Catering needs its own layout, with package tiers, per-person prices, minimum guest counts and an order lead time, which the catering flyer guide covers.
Food photos that still look like the dish
Edit a food photo for light and clutter, never for the food. Google's Business Profile guidelines ask for JPG or PNG photos between 10 KB and 5 MB, recommend 720 x 720 pixels (250 x 250 at minimum), and want photos with "no significant alterations or excessive use of filters", so that the picture shows what a guest will get. A burger edited to look taller or a salad with extra avocado breaks that guideline, and it sets up a disappointed table.
For one small distraction, use the eraser on your phone. Magic Eraser in Google Photos has been open to every Google Photos user on a supported phone, with no subscription, since a rollout that began May 15, 2024, and it is enough for a crumpled napkin or a straw wrapper at the edge of the plate.
For dim light or a busy background, type a plain instruction into "What should change?" in Smart Editor, which needs a Pro plan or higher and runs on OpenAI's GPT Image 2.5. Name the fix and what must stay: "Make the light look like soft morning light coming from the left side. Remove the phone and the crumpled napkin at the top edge. Keep the burger, the fries, the plate and the portion size exactly as they are." Each edit redraws the whole image, so hold the result next to your original and compare the garnish, the sauce and the portion before you post. An HD edit comes back about 1,024 pixels on its shorter side, above Google's 720 x 720 recommendation.
Captions, emails and food creator posts
AI Writer turns a short brief (up to 2,000 characters) into a caption, an email to your list or a reply to a review. Set Type to "Social post" and Length to Short, then put the facts in "What should we write?": "Instagram caption for Tansyholm Kitchen. New fall dish: pan-roasted salmon with dill potatoes, $24, starting Friday, October 23. Dinner Tuesday to Sunday, 5 PM to 10 PM. Warm and plain, two sentences, end with the reservation number 555-0134." There's no tone control, so describe the tone inside the brief. A draft currently costs 5 credits on the Free plan.
If you comp a meal for a local food creator, a free meal is a connection their followers should know about. Ask them to say so at the start of the post, for example with "Ad" or "Gifted". A note only in a TikTok text description is easy to miss, so ask for it on screen or in the first line too. Tell the creator the wording you'd like, and check the post when it goes up.
Review cards and replies to reviews
A table card or receipt insert can ask every guest for a review, as long as it asks for an honest one and offers nothing for it. Never write, buy or make up reviews, and don't offer a discount in exchange for one, not even a hinted one such as a coupon for a review that says how great the meal was. Google's Maps policy spells out more: no discounts or free items for any review, no asking only happy guests, no reviews from employees, and no pressuring guests to post while they're still on the premises. It also bars giving staff a quota of reviews to collect.
Flyer Maker won't draw a QR code for you. Turn on "Leave a blank square for your QR code", then place the code for your review link in that space with any photo editor:
Table card for Tansyholm Kitchen, 418 Harbor Road. Headline: "How was dinner tonight?" Line under it: "We read every review. Tell us what you thought on Google." Leave a clear space in the middle for a QR code. Small line at the bottom: "Questions or a problem with your meal? Ask for the manager or call 555-0134." Warm cream background, dark green text, a small line drawing of a fork and a sprig of thyme.For a 5 x 7 inch card, choose Tall at 2K: its 1536 x 2048 pixels print at about 290 PPI once about a quarter inch is trimmed from the width. When reviews come in, AI Writer can draft a reply for you to edit. Keep it true, thank the guest by the name they posted under, and never add details you don't know.
AI for coffee shops and bakeries
Coffee shops and bakeries sell a lot of unpackaged food, which is where a written allergen note matters most: the pastry case, the cookie jar at the register, the loaf on the counter. A small card by each item, such as "Almond croissant. Contains: wheat, milk, eggs, tree nuts (almonds)", is one simple way to give that notice. Check with your health department for the form it expects.
Holiday pre-orders hinge on two dates, the order cutoff and the pickup day, so put both in large type; the bakery flyer ideas have wording for pie and cookie-box orders. For a seasonal drink board on the TV behind a coffee counter, choose the Wide size, labeled "Screens and email", and keep it to four or five drinks with prices so people in line can read them:
Fall drinks board for the coffee counter at Juniper Hollow Bakehouse, 62 Orchard Lane. Headline: "Fall Drinks Are Here". Maple oat latte $5.75, Spiced apple cider $4.50, Pumpkin chai $5.50, Cinnamon cold brew $5.25. Line at the bottom: "Oat, almond and soy milk available. Almond milk contains tree nuts. Order at the counter." Warm rust and cream colors, simple illustrated leaves, very large prices that read from across the room.What to be careful about
- Recipe changes. When a dish gains nuts, sesame or another major allergen, fix the menu, the allergen card and any posted flyer the same day.
- AI labels on edited photos. An edited dish photo can still pick up Meta's "AI info" label on Facebook or Instagram, which Meta adds when a file carries AI signals or you say AI was used. For photos that were only edited, Meta has kept that label in the post's menu since September 2024.
- Reviews. Never write, buy or generate a review, and never trade a discount for one. Google removes reviews that break its policy.
- Staff and guests in photos. Ask before you make images of real people. Toybox's Terms of Service forbid generating images of a real person without their explicit consent.
Make this week's specials flyer in Flyer Maker
The weekly special repeats more than any other job, so set it up first.
- Sign in with email or Google, then go to Flyer Maker. A flyer currently costs 80 credits, more than the 20 free credits a new account starts with, so check the plans and credit top-ups.
- In "Describe your flyer", type the dish or deal, the price, the days and hours, the address, any conditions and how to order, with the exact phone number.
- Under "Size", choose Portrait for Instagram or Tall for the host stand and front window.
- Open "More options", set "Flyer type" to Restaurant, and choose 2K or 4K under "Quality" if you'll print it.
- Tap "Create flyer". Most flyers are ready in about 30 seconds.
- Read every price, date, hour and phone number on the result. Flyer Maker fills gaps it isn't given, such as a tagline, so remove anything you didn't write.
- If one detail is wrong, describe the fix in the "Want to change something?" box under the flyer (currently 60 credits at 1K, 70 at 2K, 90 at 4K), then download the PNG.