Why bars have the strongest case of anyone
Digital menu boards for bars solve a sharper problem than they do in restaurants, because a bar menu does not change seasonally. It changes weekly, and sometimes mid-service.
A restaurant might revise its menu four times a year. A taproom with 16 lines rotates several every week, and a keg can kick at 8pm on a Friday. Every hour the board disagrees with what is actually pouring, your staff are apologising and your best-margin pour is invisible.
That is the whole argument. Not aesthetics, not upselling. The board is wrong more often than it is right, and it costs you.
The keg change workflow
This is the test any tap list system has to pass: a line kicks during service. What happens?
With chalk: someone finds a cloth, a stepladder and the one person with legible handwriting, and does it after the rush, if they remember. With a printed list: it is wrong until the next print run.
With a screen it is one action on a phone behind the bar. Mark the line as empty, assign the new beer, done in under ten seconds without leaving the bar. That is the single feature that makes or breaks a tap list board, so test it before you buy anything: can a bartender make the change from behind the bar, mid-service, on a phone? If it needs a laptop or a designer, it will not get done.
What belongs on a tap list
Beer drinkers read a board differently from diners. They scan for style and strength before price, so the hierarchy is different from a food menu.
Per line, show:
- Brewery and beer name, brewery smaller if it is all your own.
- Style, in plain language. Hazy IPA, not just IPA.
- ABV, which is the number most drinkers scan for first.
- Pour sizes and prices, usually two or three options.
- Origin, if you run guest taps.
- A tasting note, six words maximum. Nobody reads eleven.
Skip IBU unless your crowd genuinely asks for it. And leave the empty lines visible as "coming soon" rather than blank: an obviously live board builds more anticipation than a tidy one.
Screens and layout for a bar
Bars are dark, which changes the hardware maths in your favour. You need less brightness than a daylight-filled cafe, so 350 to 400 nits is usually plenty, and a dimmer board is easier on the room.
Portrait screens suit tap lists better than landscape. A tall panel takes 8 to 10 lines cleanly, matches the vertical rhythm of a tap wall, and lets you run two or three panels side by side as the list grows.
Dark backgrounds with light type are the right call here, both for the room and because a bright white board behind the bar is unpleasant at 11pm. If the same screens also run food, keep the tap panel visually separate rather than mixing beer and burgers in one grid. The general rules in our digital menu board size and layout guide still apply.
Connecting it to the till
Pour prices live in your POS already, so let the board read them. A price change or a happy-hour rate then happens once, in the till, and the board follows. MenuPi connects natively to Square, Toast, Clover, Lightspeed and 35+ more.
Happy hour is where scheduling earns its keep: set the window once and the board switches its own pricing at 4pm and back at 6pm with nobody touching it. Our scheduling guide covers dayparts and timed price changes in detail.
Beyond the tap list
Once the screens are up, a bar has more use for them than a restaurant does. The Brewers Association tracks how much of a taproom's business now comes from events and merchandise rather than pints alone, and screens are the cheapest way to promote both.
Worth putting on rotation: what is on next, event nights, merch and cans to go, and a QR to the full food menu. Keep it to one rotating panel out of three. A tap wall that constantly animates stops being readable, and readability is the entire job.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a digital tap list board cost?
Budget $500 to $900 for a commercial portrait display, $80 to $150 for a media player, and around $8 per screen per month for software. Most taprooms run two or three panels, so roughly $1,500 to $3,000 up front.
Can bartenders update the tap list themselves?
That is the point of the system. A well-set-up board lets any bartender swap a line from a phone in seconds, with pricing and layout locked so nothing else can be changed by accident.
Are digital boards better than chalkboards for a taproom?
For accuracy, unarguably. Chalk has real charm and plenty of bars run both: chalk for the permanent lines and personality, screens for the rotating taps that actually change. That combination usually beats either one alone.
Should I show ABV on the menu board?
Yes. It is the number most beer drinkers look for first, it reduces questions at the bar, and in many places it is expected or required alongside pour sizes. Check your local licensing rules on how pour sizes and prices must be displayed.
Can one board cover beer, cocktails and food?
It can, but give each its own panel or its own screen. Mixing a 16-line tap list with a food menu in a single layout makes both harder to read, and the tap list is the one people are standing there scanning.
Put the board on the same clock as the taps
Every bar already has a system for tracking what is pouring. It is just not the thing on the wall.
Start MenuPi free on one screen, build your tap list, and hand a bartender the phone.