Operating a restaurant can be a messy business — literally. Whether your restaurant is a fine dining, white tablecloth establishment or a down-home barbecue joint, food and drink, spills are inevitable. If your restaurant has been open for any stretch of time, you’ve doubtlessly encountered some interesting spills and even stranger causes behind them. One of the most common casualties of any restaurant mess is the menu.
Everything from an exuberant toddler to a cold drink set down on a menu can quickly wreck your menus, whether there is a protective plastic coating or not. Without a protective sheet, paper menus will be stained and need to be replaced with frequency. Surprisingly — or not, if you’ve been in the restaurant business a while — menus with protective sleeves are also stained with impressive regularity. So what’s the answer? Do you choose paper that you replace on a daily basis or pay more for the protective sheets and hope your menus will last longer?
Fighting Against Frequent Menu Replacement
Many restaurants opt to use paper menus attached to a reusable, branded backing. The upside is the ability to update menu items as often as you choose, and to replace those paper sheets fairly inexpensively. The downside is how easily they can be wrecked. All it takes is a single glass of water being set down on a menu to leave a noticeable ring of warped paper, and that’s on top of the propensity liquids have for blurring printer ink. Even something as simple as a messy finger can leave a noticeable mark that will require that paper’s replacement.
It makes sense, then, that many restaurants invest in menu books with plastic sleeves. The plastic sleeves provide an added layer of protection, but the opening at the top of each sleeve means that the protection is imperfect. Too close to a condensation-covered glass, and the sheets of paper inside can still be warped. Then, of course, there’s the food that somehow ends up between the pages. If food is sandwiched between pages and left, it can quickly stain those protective plastic sheets, which often means replacing the whole menu book, not just a page.
Stain-Free Menu Alternatives
Restaurants far and wide constantly seek better alternatives. Waterproof menus are often the answer, but the trick with that is finding an option that doesn’t need professional menu printing to provide the protective benefits. This is where TerraSlate comes in. Our paper products are waterproof, tear-proof, and colorfast without any specialty menu printing or post-production finishing. Something that will make many restaurant owners cheer is that our waterproof paper and other products aren’t just waterproof, they also repel grease, chemicals, and solvents.
We mention this specifically because restaurant menus have a reputation for being some of the dirtiest items in a restaurant. Not only are many menus stained, but they also carry a lot of germs and bacteria that get passed from one guest to the next. With waterproof paper products that are chemical- and solvent-resistant, you can wipe them clean between every use and keep the transfer of germs to a minimum.
TerraSlate Menu Stain Test
We’re so proud of the stain-free nature of our waterproof menus that we took a sheet of our waterproof paper — the same type we use for single-sheet menus — and put it to the test. Watch as we pour a number of common liquids and sauces on a white sheet of paper and let that sit. After hours of time during which those sauces had the chance to soak in and stain the waterproof paper, we’re proud to say that all it took was a splash of water to get the sheet clean, without a single stain in sight! You can see the results for yourself on our YouTube channel.
TerraSlate is the ultimate option for menu printing because you can enjoy the waterproof, tear-proof, colorfast benefits without any sort of additional processing. This means you can print off new menus with a standard laser printer or copy machine just as easily as you could on standard copy paper. We give you the freedom to make and replace your menus as often as you need — which will only be as often as you update menu items, thanks to all the benefits our waterproof paper offers! Experience the ease; shop TerraSlate online for waterproof paper, waterproof menus, and more.
