Looking for some advice from other restaurant owners here in Chiang Mai.

Where's a good place to get some menus made for a cafe/restaurant type establishment?

Looking for a place where you get good value for your monies.

Thanks in advance.

Alex

Is it something you feel you cannot do with your own computer, printer, and your own talent?

Yeah, I'm wondering if the question is just about a print shop where they can do color prints and laminate a bunch of pages into menu booklets, or that it's a question about graphical design, or even help with the actual content..

The content (and design, to an extent) you will want to do yourself because menus need changing every so often; you want to be able to just open that file and add or remove some things, change pricing and so on.

One tip: don't make the print too small or use soft/pale colors like browns and yellows for the text or background. My sight is not bad enough that I would normally carry reading glasses, but sometimes I've been in dimly lit restaurants, where the small print and colours used make menus almost unreadable, especially when the only immediate light comes from a small candle. I notice several of my farang friends suffer the same problem....

Worst offender was the fancy Italian place at Le Meridien, nice design maybe, but having the entire menu on a small rolled up parchment style scroll with medieval style brown writing was totally impractical. The waitress had the cheek to say "many people complain about the menu"; we left! To add insult to injury we were with two Thai's who don't speak English - and they didn't have a menu in Thai either. Not what I'd expect from a five star international hotel!

BTW: if you just need a printer there are many print shops in the two sois off Chang Puek Road on the left immediately opposite and after the whit elephant monument when coming out of town. I don't know how many would offer design services too.

it's way cheaper to do it 'in house'. Otherwise you need to pay for the graphic and laminating. Note that I'm not including printing cos either way u still have to pay for paper and ink. Menu changes often so it's more worthwhile to print them yourself.

Can u imagine having to pay the graphic guy 3-4 times a year as the menu changes? And the way things are looking, it'll be prices that changes first.

Thanks for all the responses guys.

I did indeed doing most of it "in house" but we didnt have a printer so went to a print shop and get it all printed and laminated. I personally dont like laminated menus. Im a snob when it comes to Cafe culture Spoiled from visiting too many back in Copenhagen.

But we did get them laminated since they cost 30 bath each for printing and laminating.

We have more stuff that we have to take care of, like change the lighting (no idea why Thais love using flourescent tube lights lol) to warmer lighting and purchase a big sign, so that my friends business can take off.

Have a good evening/weekend all. Im off to get ready to celebrate my birthday at Chez Marco tonight with a buncha friends so you guys better stay away from Loi Kroh

It's so seedy and dirty anyways