CodMenu: why we decided to tackle restaurant digitalisation

The European food service market — restaurants, cafés, food trucks, caterers, bars — is estimated at around €488 billion in 2025, spread across 1.5 million establishments in the EU alone. (Sources: IBISWorld, Eurostat/Statista.) It is a massive, structurally fragmented market in which the overwhelming majority of operators are independents: according to Fortune Business Insights, they represented 68% of European establishments in 2024.

This market is digitalising. But the pace and depth of that transformation are not uniform. Large chains have the resources to deploy sophisticated tools. Independent operators — who make up the dominant share of the landscape — are moving far more slowly, often because there is no tool genuinely designed for them.

That is the reality that led CodHash to build CodMenu.

1. CodHash: what we built before

CodHash has been running for three years. We are three developers — Jeremy, Nathanaël and Julien — and we have spent those three years building products across varied domains: web3, artificial intelligence, mobile applications. Sometimes for clients, sometimes for ourselves.

That track record has given us several instincts that matter when launching a new product.

The first: an adopted product is rarely the most sophisticated one — it is the one that reduces friction most effectively between the user and the value they are looking for. We have seen technically sound tools never gain traction because onboarding was too long or the interface too opaque. And the reverse: simple, well-targeted products that established themselves quickly by solving a concrete problem without requiring any learning curve.

The second: short development and validation cycles improve the quality of product decisions. Three years of iterating across different projects — shipping, observing real usage, correcting course — builds a form of capital that experience alone can provide. Whether for a client project or an internal one, we bring the same level of rigour around technical debt and long-term maintainability: what we ship today needs to be evolvable tomorrow.

The third: modular architecture is not just one technical choice among others. It is what allows a product to adapt to different needs without being rebuilt from scratch each time. On CodMenu, this is a founding principle.

CodMenu is not our first project. It is the one where we have been able to apply, in a market we know, everything that previous projects taught us.

2. What the market shows

The industry data sets the frame. What is more instructive is what it reveals about the gap between the market's potential and its actual level of digital adoption.

According to the National Restaurant Association's 2024 report, 76% of operators acknowledge that technology gives them a competitive advantage. Yet in the same report, only 13% of them say they are satisfied with their current technology stack. The issue is therefore not conviction — it is the fit between the available supply and real needs.

This gap is particularly acute among independents. The solutions that dominate the market were designed for multi-site operators with dedicated teams for integration and training. They address large-scale management needs — consolidated reporting, fleet management, compliance — that do not match the reality of a restaurateur running a single twenty-cover establishment.

For these operators, the barrier to digital adoption is rarely a lack of willingness. It is more often a return on investment that is poorly understood, tools that are too complex to configure, or insufficient support to move from intent to effective usage. The value is real and documented — better online visibility, fewer order errors, actionable activity data — and our previous articles go into detail on each of these gains. What has been missing is simple access to tools that make that value tangible quickly.

Julien and I worked front-of-house during our studies. We have a direct sense of what it means to run a service without the right tools — handwritten orders, verbal relay to the kitchen, no visibility on what is actually happening in the establishment. Combined with a network of friends and close contacts working in food service or adjacent to the food industry, this gave us a concrete way to validate our reading of the market.

For a detailed view of what digitalisation concretely brings to a restaurant: Restaurant Digitalisation: Why It Has Become Essential in 2026

3. Why now

Several dynamics are converging to make the window of opportunity particularly clear today.

On the demand side, customer behaviour has shifted durably. Browsing a menu online before visiting, booking from a phone, leaving a review immediately after a meal — these have become standard behaviours. According to Eurostat, restaurant spending represented 9.1% of European household expenditure in 2023 — a significant item where an establishment's digital visibility directly influences choice.

On the operational side, margin pressure in food service is not easing. Raw material costs, labour costs, increased competition — operators are looking for efficiency wherever they can find it. An order system that reduces errors, a menu that updates in thirty seconds, a web page that captures reservations overnight: these are measurable gains that justify adopting a tool, provided it is accessible and deployable quickly.

On the supply side, the software market remains dominated by solutions built before mobile became the central device — and that often require dedicated hardware, complex integrations, and contract terms whose level of commitment is dissuasive for an independent.

The opening exists for a tool built differently: mobile-first from the ground up, no additional hardware required, deployable in under an hour, with a permanent free plan that allows operators to validate the value before committing a budget.

4. The choices we made building CodMenu

Every structural decision on CodMenu has an explicit logic.

Mobile-first

The independent restaurateur has no IT department. Between services, their primary work device is their phone. On the customer side, it is the same — the smartphone is the natural point of contact for browsing a menu, placing an order or making a reservation. Building mobile-first means aligning the tool with the actual behaviour of both parties it connects. On CodMenu, all management — menu, tables, orders, settings — is optimised for mobile before being considered for desktop.

Modular architecture

A food truck with a ten-dish menu does not have the same needs as a fifty-cover restaurant managing reservations and a team of six. Offering the same monolithic tool to both means either under-equipping one or overwhelming the other. CodMenu is built around independent modules — digital menu, dedicated website, table and order management, online reservations, review collection, analytics. Each establishment activates what it needs. Modules are added progressively, with no migration and no reconfiguration.

The free plan as a genuine entry point

Adoption of a new tool in food service runs into two obstacles: cost and perceived risk. A restaurateur who has never used a digital menu does not know what it will concretely bring them. CodMenu's free plan is not a crippled version designed to frustrate — it is a real, immediately functional starting point: dedicated web space, up to twenty menu items, up to ten tables, two team members, ten AI credits. For a food truck, a café or a small restaurant, it is usable immediately. The decision to move to a paid plan comes once the value has been demonstrated in the establishment's daily operation.

For a full overview of what the free plan enables, including for activities beyond food service: CodMenu for free: a professional online presence, no subscription

AI as a friction reducer

One of the concrete barriers to creating a digital menu is content. Taking quality photos, writing descriptions, translating the menu — this takes time that most restaurateurs do not have. CodMenu integrates AI tools directly into the creation flow: image generation from a dish name, enhancement of an existing photo, writing assistance, automatic translation. These are not peripheral features — they directly reduce the time needed to have a functional digital menu in place.

5. What the platform does today

CodMenu covers the main needs of an independent food service establishment across several modules.

Digital menu and web space

Every establishment gets a web space with a personalised URL, a configurable homepage and a structured menu. The menu is accessible from any device, with no app to download on the customer side. It can be updated in real time from the admin interface — updating a price or adding a daily special takes under a minute.

Our complete guide on digital menus: Digital menus and QR codes: the complete guide to getting started

What the CodMenu website brings to an establishment: Your restaurant website: your online storefront, open around the clock

Table and order management

The tables module allows operators to configure their room layout and manage the full service cycle. Orders can be taken by the team from the admin interface or directly by the customer via the self-service menu. In both cases, they arrive in real time with their status, visible simultaneously front of house and in the kitchen. This system reduces input errors and eliminates back-and-forth between the floor and the kitchen.

The detailed tutorial on order management: Take and manage orders with CodMenu

Online reservations

The reservations module lets customers book directly from the establishment's web space. A dedicated page is generated automatically. Reservations are managed from the admin interface.

What online reservations concretely change for a restaurant: Online reservations: simplify management and fill your room

Review collection

CodMenu integrates a review collection module that captures customer feedback and directs satisfied customers to Google to maximise the establishment's public visibility.

Our article on Google review management: Google reviews: how to collect more and improve your rating

Analytics

The analytics module gives restaurateurs visibility into their activity — which dishes are most viewed, how traffic evolves, which hours concentrate activity — without requiring third-party tools or data analysis skills.

On the value of data for running a restaurant: Restaurant analytics: understanding your activity to manage better

6. What we learned building the product

Building CodMenu confirmed several things.

The most structural: having access to real potential users during the development phase changes the quality of product decisions. Our network in food service allowed us to validate hypotheses quickly — not through market research, but through direct conversations about what actually causes problems day to day. It also changes how we prioritise: when you know that configuration time is the primary barrier to adoption, you invest in onboarding before advanced features.

We also confirmed that proof through usage is the strongest adoption argument we can build. A restaurateur who uses CodMenu for free for a few weeks and sees it working in their establishment is far closer to moving to a paid plan than a prospect who attended a demonstration. This is why the free plan is a real tool, not a teaser.

Finally, three years of varied projects at CodHash reinforced that the features that seem indispensable during the design phase are often the ones real users use least. The reverse is equally true — details that could have been overlooked become critical friction points once in production. Observing real usage, even at small scale, is irreplaceable.

7. What comes next

CodMenu has just launched. The priorities for the coming months are clear.

Customer acquisition — building an active user base among independent restaurateurs, in France and beyond. The free plan is our primary entry point: it reduces perceived risk and lets the tool prove its value under real conditions.

UX refinement — a product that has just launched, however well designed, reveals its friction points through real usage. We will iterate on the interface, the onboarding flows and the critical user journeys based on feedback from early users. This is the most important phase for building a product that lasts.

Integration with external tools — restaurateurs already use tools for their point of sale, accounting, and third-party reservations. CodMenu needs to fit into that ecosystem rather than replace it. We are working on opening an API and building the first third-party integrations.

For restaurateurs who want to test the platform: codmenu.com/en/register. The free plan is permanent and requires no credit card.

For those who want to follow CodHash or discuss what we are building: codhash.com.

Conclusion

The starting observation is factual: a market of nearly €500 billion in Europe, dominated by independents, in which the accessible software supply is insufficient and poorly aligned with real needs. Three years of building products in demanding technical sectors gave us the instincts to address it properly.

CodMenu is the sum of what we learned before building it. The market is there. We are addressing it.

About CodMenu:

• Discover the platform: codmenu.com

• Get started for free: codmenu.com/en/register

• Restaurant digitalisation in 2026: Read the article

About CodHash:

• Our studio: codhash.com

Sources

• IBISWorld, Restaurants & Takeaways in Europe, 2025 — market estimated at €488.1 billion

• Eurostat / Statista, Food and beverage service establishments in the EU-27, 2022 — 1.5 million establishments

• Fortune Business Insights, Europe Foodservice Market, 2024 — 68% independent establishments

• National Restaurant Association, Restaurant Technology Landscape Report, 2024 — 76% of operators see technology as a competitive advantage; 13% satisfied with their current stack

• Eurostat, Household expenditure structure, 2023 — food service represents 9.1% of European household expenditure