Illuminated Menus Help Diners Decide in the Dark

Instead of turning up the lights, the Belkin sisters of the DUO Restaurant & Lounge decided to make their menus glow

The catering business is a weird place. A restaurant or bar will pay minimum wage to its employees, and endure endless staff turnover, but it will waste cash on the most pointless things. Exhibit A, from the DUO Restaurant and Lounge in New York, is the illuminated menu.

Faced with customers squinting to read menus in the subdued mood lighting, the owners — Lorraine and Sabina Belkin — decided against simply turning up the lights. Instead, they had illuminated menus custom built and imported. These two-sided folders are charged every night (by an underpaid minion no doubt) and use a “special backlit film paper” to shine through a paper menu placed on the front.

I tease. It’s actually a pretty neat idea, and certainly beats hosing down your diners with a fire extinguisher every time they try to read a paper menu by candlelight. And even custom made, these illuminated menus (hopefully) cost less than springing for a bunch of iPads, which seems to be another catering industry trend.

DUO Restaurant & Lounge [Sorry — it’s a Facebook page. Thanks, Mary!]

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