A brand menu is a central master menu for multi-location restaurants. When a location's menu is linked to it, brand-level edits automatically apply to every linked location, so you can update all your locations from one place.
ℹ️ Note: Not every restaurant uses a brand menu. If yours doesn't, you can ignore any "not connected to brand menu" messages.
How brand menus work
When a location's menu is linked to the brand menu:
Centralized updates: edits to the brand menu (new item, price change, menu hours) automatically apply to all linked locations.
Consistency: faster to build and edit, and consistent across locations.
Changes flow one direction: brand to linked locations. Edits at a single location apply only to that location; they don't sync up to the brand or across to other locations.
When you edit a brand-level menu, these are overwritten on every connected location:
Menu name and display name
Availability (the on/off toggle)
Menu hours
Categories, items, options, prices, descriptions, and photos
⚠️ Two things to watch:
Turning a brand menu off takes connected locations offline. The on/off toggle is itself synced, so turning it off at the brand level pushes "off" down to every connected location. To stop a location from receiving brand-level changes, disconnect its menu.
Brand-level hours overwrite location hours. If a location has its own hours (like closed Sundays), connecting it to a brand menu with different hours replaces those hours on the next brand update. There's no merge; it's a direct overwrite.
What "not linked to brand menu" means
In the Dashboard you might see:
In the menu, category, or item editor: a banner reading Not connected to a brand menu (or category, or item) next to a Connect link. When it's connected, it reads Connected to [name] with a Disconnect link.
On the Menu list pages, the Connected column shows Brand-connected, POS-connected, Brand and POS-connected, or a dash when it's connected to neither.
It means that menu, category, or item isn't connected to your brand-level menu, so:
It won't automatically receive brand-level updates.
Changes you make to it stay local and don't affect the brand menu or other locations.
In the Owner Dashboard
First decide whether this location should mirror the brand menu or run independently (see below). To connect or disconnect a location's menu:
Click Menu in the left-hand navigation.
Click the Menus tab at the top of the page.
Select the menu.
Click Connect or Disconnect as needed.
Click Save.
For help with your multi-location menu strategy, contact Owner Support.
When to use a brand menu vs. separate menus
Use a brand-connected menu when:
All locations share the same menu, prices, and hours.
You want a single source of truth and one update across the chain.
Local variations are minor.
Keep menus separate (disconnect) when:
Locations run different hours (different open/close times or days closed).
Locations have meaningfully different menus, prices, or availability.
A new location opens on a different schedule than the rest of the chain.
Example
A chain has three locations on different schedules, and the original is closed Sundays. A new location opened on a Saturday with the correct opening-weekend hours set at the location level, but online ordering was down all opening weekend. The cause: the brand menu was on and set to the original's schedule, and because the new location's menu was connected to the brand menu, the brand hours overwrote its location hours. The fix: disconnect each location's menu so each runs its own hours. Leaving the brand menu's hours empty doesn't work, because an empty brand schedule still overwrites the location's hours.
If a location goes offline unexpectedly
If a location's online ordering goes dark but its location hours look correct:
Go to the brand-level menu.
Check whether the brand menu's availability toggle is on or off.
Check the brand menu's hours (they override the location's hours if connected).
Check whether the location's menu is connected to the brand menu.
If the location should run independently, disconnect it and reconfigure its hours.