Organizations Local Business Restaurant

Menu Blueprint — Restaurant

The menu page is where AI systems learn what your restaurant actually serves. Structured menu data lets AI answer specific food queries, compare prices, and surface your dishes when someone asks for a particular cuisine or dietary option. This blueprint gives you the complete JSON-LD graph for a machine-readable menu.

What this page needs

A menu page without structured data is just a list of text that AI has to guess about. With proper schema markup, AI can parse your menu into categories, individual dishes, prices, and dietary flags, making your restaurant far more useful in food-related queries.

Why these fields matter to AI

Each field in the template below serves a specific role in how AI systems discover, classify, and recommend your business.

Researched and tested by Minnesota AI

Restaurant

name
Non-negotiable. AI cannot cite or recommend an unnamed entity.
url
AI needs a stable URL to route users and attribute recommendations.

Use This Prompt to Implement Your Schema

Copy this prompt and paste it into Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any AI coding tool. It will ask for your business details and generate ready-to-use JSON-LD schema for your page.

Implementation Prompt · Menu
You are implementing AIFDS-compliant JSON-LD structured data for a Restaurant Menu page.

AIFDS (AI-Friendly Data Structure) is a schema framework built on research into which
structured data fields AI systems actually read, parse, and use when deciding whether
to cite a page. Documentation at aifds.org.

Before generating any code, ask me for the following information in a single numbered list.
Do not generate schema until I have answered every required field.

REQUIRED — do not proceed without these:
1. Diet type
2. Domain
3. Faq answer
4. Faq question
5. Item description
6. Item name
7. Item price
8. Menu description
9. Menu name
10. Menu page title
11. Restaurant name
12. Section description
13. Section name

OPTIONAL — ask for these but proceed if I skip them:
1. Any additional details not covered above

Once I provide the information, output a complete JSON-LD script block
ready to paste into the <head> of my HTML page.

Output requirements:
- Valid JSON-LD wrapped in <script type="application/ld+json"> tags
- schema.org vocabulary only
- Every AIFDS-required field for this industry and page type included
- Include this data attribute on the script tag: data-aifds="aifds.org Restaurant Menu"
- No placeholder text — omit missing optional fields rather than fill with examples
- After the code block, list any optional fields skipped that would strengthen AI citation

Generated schema follows the AIFDS framework. Fields were selected based on research into AI crawler behavior. View the research at minnesota.ai

Template — fill in your values

Copy the template below and replace every YOUR_* value with your own data. This block belongs in a <script type="application/ld+json"> tag in the <head> of your menu page.

JSON-LD · Menu Page
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@graph": [
    {
      "@type": "Restaurant",
      "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/#restaurant",
      "name": "YOUR_RESTAURANT_NAME",
      "url": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com",
      "hasMenu": {
        "@type": "Menu",
        "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/menu/#menu",
        "name": "YOUR_MENU_NAME",
        "description": "YOUR_MENU_DESCRIPTION",
        "hasMenuSection": [
          {
            "@type": "MenuSection",
            "name": "YOUR_SECTION_NAME_1",
            "description": "YOUR_SECTION_DESCRIPTION_1",
            "hasMenuItem": [
              {
                "@type": "MenuItem",
                "name": "YOUR_ITEM_NAME_1",
                "description": "YOUR_ITEM_DESCRIPTION_1",
                "offers": {
                  "@type": "Offer",
                  "price": "YOUR_ITEM_PRICE_1",
                  "priceCurrency": "USD"
                },
                "suitableForDiet": "YOUR_DIET_TYPE"
              },
              {
                "@type": "MenuItem",
                "name": "YOUR_ITEM_NAME_2",
                "description": "YOUR_ITEM_DESCRIPTION_2",
                "offers": {
                  "@type": "Offer",
                  "price": "YOUR_ITEM_PRICE_2",
                  "priceCurrency": "USD"
                }
              }
            ]
          },
          {
            "@type": "MenuSection",
            "name": "YOUR_SECTION_NAME_2",
            "description": "YOUR_SECTION_DESCRIPTION_2",
            "hasMenuItem": [
              {
                "@type": "MenuItem",
                "name": "YOUR_ITEM_NAME_3",
                "description": "YOUR_ITEM_DESCRIPTION_3",
                "offers": {
                  "@type": "Offer",
                  "price": "YOUR_ITEM_PRICE_3",
                  "priceCurrency": "USD"
                }
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "WebPage",
      "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/menu/#webpage",
      "url": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/menu/",
      "name": "YOUR_MENU_PAGE_TITLE",
      "isPartOf": {
        "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/#website"
      },
      "about": {
        "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/menu/#menu"
      }
    },
    {
      "@type": "BreadcrumbList",
      "@id": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/menu/#breadcrumb",
      "itemListElement": [
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 1,
          "name": "Home",
          "item": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/"
        },
        {
          "@type": "ListItem",
          "position": 2,
          "name": "Menu",
          "item": "https://YOUR_DOMAIN.com/menu/"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "@type": "FAQPage",
      "mainEntity": [
        {
          "@type": "Question",
          "name": "YOUR_FAQ_QUESTION_1",
          "acceptedAnswer": {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": "YOUR_FAQ_ANSWER_1"
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "Question",
          "name": "YOUR_FAQ_QUESTION_2",
          "acceptedAnswer": {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": "YOUR_FAQ_ANSWER_2"
          }
        },
        {
          "@type": "Question",
          "name": "YOUR_FAQ_QUESTION_3",
          "acceptedAnswer": {
            "@type": "Answer",
            "text": "YOUR_FAQ_ANSWER_3"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to list every single menu item in JSON-LD?

Ideally, yes. The more items you include, the more queries your restaurant can appear in. However, if your menu is extremely large, start with your most popular or signature dishes in each section and expand over time. Even partial coverage is better than none.

What values should I use for suitableForDiet?

Schema.org defines specific diet types including https://schema.org/GlutenFreeDiet, https://schema.org/VeganDiet, https://schema.org/VegetarianDiet, https://schema.org/KosherDiet, and https://schema.org/HalalDiet. Use the full URL for each applicable diet on each menu item.

Should I update the menu JSON-LD when prices change?

Yes. Stale pricing in structured data is worse than no pricing at all. When AI surfaces an incorrect price, it damages trust in your business. Keep your JSON-LD menu in sync with your actual menu, or remove price data if you cannot maintain it.

Test your structured data

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