How Restaurants Can Finally Treat Digital Menu Boards Like a Performance Channel
Digital Menu Boards (DMBs) sit at the most valuable decision point in the restaurant experience: when a guest is deciding what to order. But for years, most brands haven’t been able to treat on-premise menus like a true performance channel.
Menus were static. Content updates were slow. Performance was difficult to measure. And experimentation wasn’t possible in a controlled or scalable way.
That’s changing.
Checkmate’s Digital Menu Board capabilities are designed to give restaurant brands real-time control, measurable impact, and a way to actually learn from what’s happening on the board.
Moving Beyond Static Menus: Testing and Optimization
Checkmate is making it easier for brands to actively test and optimize what appears on their digital menu boards.
For decades, e-commerce has relied on testing and iteration — running A/B tests, refining offers, and learning from customer behavior. Restaurants can now take a similar approach.
Checkmate’s test-and-learn capabilities allow brands to rotate creative, trial new promotions, and measure impact across locations.
More detail on this capability can be found here:
→ Press Release: DMB Test & Learn
With this functionality, brands can:
- Rotate creative variations to identify what drives higher engagement
- Validate promotional strategies before rolling them out broadly
- Align merchandising strategy with measurable performance
- Test pricing, bundling, and add-on strategies in a controlled way
In short: brands can finally treat their DMBs like a performance channel, not just a static menu.
Turning Data Into Personalization: Machine Learning & Affinity Mapping
The next evolution isn’t coming, it’s already here.
Checkmate’s machine learning and affinity mapping capabilities help brands understand which items naturally sell together and how to surface those combinations in real time.
Think of it like the familiar Amazon experience: “You bought this, you may also like this.” Now applied to on-premise menus.
By analyzing ordering patterns across locations, Checkmate DMB software can identify high-performing item pairings and recommend them directly on the menu board, helping guide guests toward higher-value orders without adding friction.
This enables brands to:
- Surface relevant add-ons and pairings automatically
- Increase average order value
- Adapt recommendations based on real-world ordering behavior
- Move from static merchandising to dynamic, data-driven suggestions
The result is a smarter menu that doesn’t just display options, it actively helps drive better ordering decisions.
You can read the full announcement here: → [Press Release: Machine Learning & Affinity Mapping]
A New Layer of Visibility: Real-Time Monitoring and Control
Checkmate recently launched a Digital Menu Board Monitoring Dashboard that gives brands unprecedented visibility into their screens across locations.
Instead of waiting for store feedback or guest complaints to identify issues, teams can now see the real status of boards, live and in real time. That means faster fixes, fewer blind spots, and a better guest experience.
You can read the full announcement here:
→ Press Release: Checkmate Launches Advanced Digital Menu Board Monitoring Dashboard
This new level of visibility allows teams to stop treating digital menu boards as a “set it and forget it” system, and instead manage them like a living channel.
The Bigger Picture: Why This Matters for Restaurant Brands
Two recent podcast conversations help put these innovations in context:
- In this episode, the conversation focuses on the operational challenges behind modern restaurant menus, and how centralized menu management enables everything from digital menu boards to personalization and testing.
→ Listen to Podcast with Vishal Agarwal - In this episode, the discussion dives deeper into how digital ordering and on-premise experiences are converging, and why DMBs represent one of the most valuable, yet underutilized, channels in the restaurant ecosystem:
→ Listen to Podcast with Brett Spiegel
From Static Display to Revenue Engine
Digital menu boards are no longer just screens. They’re becoming strategic assets.
By combining:
- Real-time visibility and monitoring
- Controlled experimentation and testing
- AI-driven insights and personalization
…restaurants can finally treat their on-premise menus with the same rigor and sophistication as their digital channels.
The result: better guest experiences, stronger performance, and a smarter path to growth.
Are Your Digital Menu Boards Driving Revenue?
If your digital menu boards aren’t being tested, optimized, and measured—you’re leaving money on the table. Watch the recording of our virtual executive session to learn how to:
- Increase AOV with smarter upsells
- Identify what’s working (and what’s not) across locations
- Launch and iterate faster without operational bottlenecks
