Editing Menu (section)

===Paper===
[[File: City Hotel, New Orleans restaurant menu (December 8, 1857).jpg|thumb|City Hotel, New Orleans restaurant menu (December 8, 1857)]]
[[File:Savoy Hotels meny från år 1900 - Hallwylska museet - 100667.tif|thumb|Savoy Hotel in Cairo, menu from 1900.]]
Menus vary in length and detail depending on the type of restaurant. The simplest hand-held menus are printed on a single sheet of paper, though menus with multiple pages or "views" are common. In some cafeteria-style restaurants and chain restaurants, a single-page menu may double as a disposable placemat. To protect a menu from spills and wear, it may be protected by heat-sealed vinyl page protectors, [[laminate|lamination]] or menu covers. Restaurants consider their positioning in the marketplace (e.g. fine dining, fast food, informal) in deciding which style of menu to use.

Some restaurants use a single menu as the sole source of information about the food for customers, but in other cases, the main menu is supplemented by ancillary menus, such as:
* An appetizer menu (nachos, chips and salsa, vegetables and dip, etc.)
* A wine list
* A liquor and mixed drinks menu
* A beer list
* A dessert menu (which may also include a list of tea and coffee options)

Some restaurants use only text in their menus. In other cases, restaurants include illustrations and photos, either of the dishes or of an element of the culture which is associated with the restaurant. For instance a Lebanese kebab restaurant might decorate its menu with photos of Lebanese mountains and beaches. Particularly with the ancillary menu types, the menu may be provided in alternative formats, because these menus (other than wine lists) tend to be much shorter than food menus. For example, an appetizer menu or a dessert menu may be displayed on a folded paper table tent, a hard plastic table stand, a flipchart style wooden "table stand", or even, in the case of a pizza restaurant with a limited wine selection, a wine list glued to an empty bottle.

[[Take-out]] restaurants often leave paper menus in the lobbies and doorsteps of nearby homes as advertisements. The first to do so may have been New York City's Empire Szechuan chain, founded in 1976.<ref name="clines19940116">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/16/nyregion/new-yorkers-co-building-the-szechuan-empire.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm | title=Building the Szechuan Empire | work=The New York Times | date=1994-01-16 | access-date=September 17, 2011 | author=Clines, Frances X. | archive-date=2013-03-08 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130308120436/http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/16/nyregion/new-yorkers-co-building-the-szechuan-empire.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm | url-status=live }}</ref> The chain and other restaurants' aggressive menu distribution on the [[Upper West Side]] of Manhattan caused the "Menu Wars" of the 1990s, including invasions of Empire Szechuan by the "Menu Vigilantes", the revoking of its cafe license, several lawsuits, and physical attacks on menu distributors.<ref name="erikson20100628">{{cite news | url=http://www.westsidespirit.com/the-chinese-menu-wars/ | title=The Chinese Menu Wars | work=The West Side Spirit | date=2010-06-28 | access-date=September 17, 2011 | author=Erikson, Chris | archive-date=2016-03-09 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309052724/http://www.westsidespirit.com/the-chinese-menu-wars/ | url-status=live }}</ref>{{r|clines19940116}}<ref name="bernstein19940102">{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/02/nyregion/neighborhood-report-upper-west-side-update-the-menu-wars-continued.html | title=The Menu Wars, Continued | work=The New York Times | date=1994-01-02 | access-date=September 17, 2011 | author=Bernstein, Emily M. | archive-date=2013-03-08 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130308120445/http://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/02/nyregion/neighborhood-report-upper-west-side-update-the-menu-wars-continued.html | url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="lii19960728">{{cite news | url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07EEDF1439F93BA15754C0A960958260&pagewanted=all | title=The Chinese Menu Guys | work=The New York Times | date=1996-07-28 | access-date=September 17, 2011 | author=Lii, Jane H. | archive-date=2012-03-05 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305004847/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07EEDF1439F93BA15754C0A960958260&pagewanted=all | url-status=live }}</ref>