Menus are the highest level of the hierarchy and represent top-level categories for the offerings your restaurant serves, for example, Food, Drinks, Lunch, Dinner, Happy Hour, or Bar.

Menus contain menu groups, which are smaller sets of related offerings, for example, a Food menu might contain menu groups for Appetizers, Salads, Entrees, and Desserts.

Menu groups contain menu items, which are the offerings themselves. An Entrees menu group might contain Roast Chicken, Pasta Primavera, and Blackened Salmon menu items.

Menu groups can also contain menu sub-groups that further classify the items in the group. For example, an Entrees menu group could contain From the Grill and Vegetarian sub-groups.

Menu groups and menu items can be assigned modifier groups that are used to further customize the items. For example, a Turkey Sandwich menu item could be assigned Cheese and Condiment modifier groups that allow a guest to specify the type of cheese and the condiments they want on their sandwich.

If you assign a modifier group to a menu group, the modifier group applies to all the menu items in the group by default, although you can disable that inheritance for individual menu items in the group, if necessary. Also, an individual menu item can have a combination of modifiers that it inherits from its parent menu group and modifiers that have been assigned to the menu item itself.

Modifier groups contain modifiers that represent the specific changes you can make to the menu item. For example, a Cheese modifier group could contain Cheddar and Provolone modifiers while a Temperature modifier group could contain Rare, Medium, and Well Done modifiers. Modifier groups can be applied to individual menu items or to menu groups. When a modifier group is applied to a menu group, it applies to all the menu items contained in that menu group.

Modifiers are supported by an underlying menu item, called the modifier's item reference. The underlying item may be an existing menu item, for example, a Sandwich Sides modifier option may reference a Fries menu item. The Fries menu item exists as a standalone menu item and it also functions as the item reference for a Sandwich Sides modifier option. When you create a modifier option that does not refer to an existing menu item, the Toast platform creates an underlying reference menu item for it. For more information on modifier item references, see Understanding a modifier item reference.

Modifiers can contain nested modifier groups that allow a guest or employee to further customize a modifier. For example, a dinner entree could have a Side Salad modifier. The Side Salad modifier can contain a nested modifier group called Salad Dressing with Balsamic and Ranch modifiers.

Entities that cannot be shared:

Entities that can be shared:

Entities that can be re-used:

Modifier groups can be applied to menu groups or menu items.