Take Out Menus - Categorization & Storage

Hi,

I am drowning in take-out menus. These handy little restaurant souvenirs, which keep my spelling correct, with interesting bits of information (food selection, hours, address, phone and sometimes some history) keeping them invaluable to me.

One of my New Year's Day projects will be clearing my desk, purse, coat pockets and night stand of my souvenirs. I not only have simple take-out menus, I have menus from special dinners with food celebrities as well as a entire cruise menu from the Queen Mary.

I am trying to formulate a game plan for filing my menus. The very special events I clearly understand how to file. It is the 'Chicago' pile, which will likely need refining to be of any use later.

I am considering separate travel folders for menus along I-80 to NJ, roads leading to Washington, D.C. and to Mississippi, which I repeat from time to time. My end-destinations would likely garner their own folders once they have reached critical mass.

I know I am not the only one with this souvenir filing problem. If you have any tips - beyond tossing them away - then please advise.

If there were some way by which these menus (or their images) could be inputed into the computer, then we might all have access to them in our Useful Stuff file - perhaps they could then be accessed through a key word search (and Cathy could keep her originals alphabetized at home). I'm not sufficiently computer literate to know if this could be done easily.

I am also not sufficiently legally literate to know if take-out menus are a form of intellectual property! and whether approval needs to be given.

I, too, have a bunch of take-out menus crying out for organization.

Cathy,

This is a link to a guy on one of the BBQ lists who collects restaurant menus. You might look at what he's got going and email him. Feel free to use my name and mention the Smokering email list.

http://www.exit109.com/~mstevens/menus.shtml

Hi,

Just reading his website provides clues of how he organizes and sorts his menus.

Thanks for the tip!

Happy New Year!

Cathy,

I was browsing at Gallerie Z at Old Orchard today and found a "Take Out Menu Organizer." It is a large plastic notebook with folders in which one can stick menus. Of course, you still have to figure out what your organizing scheme will be. It seems quite functional, although not exactly stylish IMHO.

The cost at Gallerie Z is $24.95 plus tax.

You can also find it on-line at www.knockknock.biz

There the cost is $27.95 with whatever shipping might be.

Cathy,

You inspired me to start cleaning out the 2 kitchen drawers full of menus. I'm putting them in top loading sheet protectors - 1 or 2 to a sheet, then into a binder that I'll keep on the cookbook shelf.
If I get really ambitious, I'll put in dividers labeled for cuisine & neighborhood and use up some of the 4,448 pizza menus. I'll still have to pull out most menus to read them, but they'll be easier to find and it's a cheaper method then buying a special holder.

Anne,

I'm glad I inspire organization in someone because I am not the best example to lead. I'm really good at acquiring, I just have a hard time giving it up.

I will update you what I have done so far:

I divided my take-out menus between Chicago and Not-Chicago, which I alphabetize while watching television. These are in plain filing manila folders stored in my filing cabinet. I may break up Not-Chicago later, though I am not yet finished.

I also created an Excel spreadsheet with the following columns:
Type (fast food, bistro, eat-in, BBQ, sushi, seafood, diner, pizza, ice cream, butcher, +)
Ethnic (American, Southern, Japanese, +)
Name
Address
City
Phone
Fax
Website
Hours

I will likely add a column for date menu was received. I visited George R at his map business recently. He was showing a menu from a Mexican place in Highland Park. They have been open for a year and already on their second take-out menu with some changes. I noticed George dates his menus. I think at the very least it alerts you to which menu is current.

I know there are some rolling their eyes about the Excel sheet. Most of the information I need on the quick is there: type, ethnicity, location and hours ... all which can be sorted and searched various ways. I did learn something from collecting data: many suburban locations never posted hours while all Chicago locations did. I think in the city there is a greater demand for late hour delivery. Whereas in the (sidewalks roll up at night) suburbs, there isn't the late delivery demand with a general understanding of hours.

When I sorted my menus by city, which I included zip code. I found there were parts of Chicago I visit more frequently than others simply by how the zip codes stacked up.

Just the menus I found in and around my desk, I have 99 entries on my Excel sheet. I keep finding them here-and-there, so the entries will climb. I am keeping another manila folder with menus to be added to the database. Hopefully I will misplace less and find things faster.

I have not yet gotten to the menus. So far they are just sitting in a folder waiting for my attention. I do like your idea of using the plastic sleeves and mounting them into a ring-binder. It's quick, cheap and very accessible ... I'm glad you added to this discussion.

Happy sorting!

HI,

According to my excel sheet, I am over 500 menus stored in alphabetical order in two major groupings: Chicago and anyplace not in Chicago. They are stored in 3 manila folders each at 3 inches thick. I have a fourth folder for special event menus, which don't apply to restaurant standard fare.

Some restaurants change menus and pricing, so I pick up menus and compare them to exisiting. If they have changed, then they are added to the collection with the older variants kept as well. I was at Seven Treasures recently reflexively picking up the menu. I thought it is just another task, why not ask the cashier if the menu changed. "Oh no, our menu hasn't changed. Only our prices have gone up." "Prices going up is a change. Thank you," then took a menu home to update the collection.

How do I use this collection? Today I used my excel sheet database to find the name of a recently closed restaurant in Gurnee. I started my search by keyword '41' which was too broad, then switched to 'greek' which quickly located my prey.

My parents are on my OnStar network. Occasionally they will go to a restaurant we've enjoyed together and want to replicate the experience. They will call me, I pull out the menu from my files to advise the waitress what they will enjoy.

The upkeep is reasonable if I do it once a week. It's a pain if I drag it out for a while, which just occurred.

Occasionally I do get manna from heaven. Germuska gave me a group of menus from his neighborhood, which are now snugly in my files.

Regards,

I am drowning in take-out menus. These handy little restaurant souvenirs, which keep my spelling correct...

I'm sure we all have take out menus with spelling errors. I have a menu from a Chinese place that offered 'Human Beef'.

I recently emptied a drawer full of old menus. I could tell the old ones, not just from the prices, but because they had the wrong area codes.

There are plenty of on-line resources for menus these days (menupages.com, grubhub.com etc.) as well as the restaurants themselves, so the need to organize the most recent ones isn't so important to me. But I still rip open the Super Valu type coupon mailers and toss the coupons with menus into my drawer.

Cathy2 wrote:Occasionally I do get manna from heaven. Germuska gave me a group of menus from his neighborhood, which are now snugly in my files.

I wish I'd known other menu collections were seen as manna from heaven. I left a bunch of good and current ones for the current occupants of our old condo, but I sent most of them, and all the old ones, on into the waste file.

I bet if you request old menus from people on this board who are moving, you could increase your collection by a good margin.

Easier to use than sheet protectors are poly plastic folders with the front side cut on the diagonal--you can easily access what's in them, and can put probably 20 menus in each, by category.