Should a café put its prices on its online menu?

Cupán Studio sells café websites. We build them for cafés in Ireland, so we have an interest in the answer.

In a 2025 boards.ie thread about cafés setting up in parks and other locations in Dublin, the opening post quoted prices from the cafés' online menu, and one post called the menu "transparent and available online with prices". Other posts disagreed on whether those prices were high. The thread starts from the prices at cafés setting up in parks and other locations in Dublin, and is about what those posters thought of café prices, not about websites in general, so read it as what they wrote between September 2025 and October 2026, not as a rule. Our view: put the prices on the online menu and keep them current, so a customer can judge before coming.

About the thread

This answer draws on a boards.ie thread about cafés setting up in parks and other locations in Dublin, started on 28 September 2025 and ran to 15 October 2026. The opening post said it welcomed the idea, but that there were "loads of people online and elsewhere giving out about their prices".

What happened in the thread?

The opening post (28 September 2025) gave a price example and called it "one of the many examples from their online menu". It listed "sandwiches €8.50" and a soft drink, and added the two together as €11.50. Other posts that evening disagreed on whether the prices were high. Posts on 19 November 2025, 16 February 2026 and 14 October 2026 came back to prices. The last post in the thread is from 15 October 2026.

What did posts say about the prices being online?

One post wrote on 28 September 2025: "Seems like fairly standard pricing and the menu is transparent and available online with prices." Besides the opening post, that is the only post that mentions the menu being online. No other post says whether the menu or its prices were online. A post on 14 October 2026 reported a new price after "only looking at their menu", at "€13.50" for a sandwich and a drink. That post does not say whether the menu it looked at was online.

Did posts agree the prices were fair?

No. On 28 September 2025 one post wrote: "Dont regard their prices as being particularly out of kilter." Later that evening another wrote: "pretty high end prices in fairness." On 16 February 2026 a post said that if it were charged that much for a sandwich and a drink it would be "looking sideways at them and not going back there". So posts reacted differently to the prices quoted in the thread. We have counted posts, not people, so we do not say how many people held each.

What can a café take from it?

Our view, not the thread's: put the prices on the online menu and keep them current. In this thread, posts judged the prices and disagreed on whether they were high. In our view that is still better than a customer finding the price only when they arrive, because they choose with the figure in front of them. Our view is that an old price on a menu is worse than none. If you do not have a menu page yet, add your menu to your Google Business Profile first. On keeping a site current, see is an out-of-date café website losing customers.

Sources

• boards.ie, thread about cafés setting up in parks and other locations in Dublin, 28 September 2025 to 15 October 2026, read 23 October 2026.
• Cupán Studio, adding a menu to your Google Business Profile, read 23 October 2026.
• Cupán Studio, an out-of-date café website, read 23 October 2026.

This is a summary of a public boards.ie thread of 2025 to 2026 about cafés setting up in parks and other locations in Dublin, read on 23 October 2026, not advice for your shop. The quotes are the posters' own words; our view is marked as ours. Cupán Studio builds websites for cafés in Ireland.