Labels (allergens & dietary)

Labels are the small coloured tags you attach to dishes — Spicy, Vegan, Gluten Free, and the standard allergens. Each one has a colour and an icon, so a guest reading your menu can spot at a glance what a dish contains or suits. You create your labels once, then tag as many dishes as you like with them.

Before you begin

Labels live on the Menu page in the CRM, opened from the Menu item in the left sidebar. Available on plans that include the Menu builder. You need permission to edit the menu (the same permission that lets you add and change dishes) to create labels or tag dishes with them. As the restaurant owner you have every permission by default; an employee needs it granted to them first.

What a label is

A label is a reusable tag with three parts:

• A name — for example, Spicy, Vegetarian or House Special.
• A colour — picked from a set of preset colours so labels stay consistent.
• An icon — a small symbol such as a flame, a leaf or an ear of wheat.

There are two kinds of label in Eighty-Six:

• Labels you create — your own custom tags for anything you want to highlight: dietary choices, chef’s picks, seasonal items, spice level, and so on.
• Allergen presets — a ready-made set of the fourteen standard allergens that Eighty-Six manages for you. You don’t type these in by hand; they are already available to assign, and their names are translated automatically. More on these below.

Once a label exists, you attach it to individual dishes. The same label can sit on as many dishes as you need, and it shows up both in the CRM and on your public menu.

Open the label manager

1. Open Menu from the left sidebar.
2. At the top right of the page, click Manage Labels (the button with a tag icon).
3. The Manage Labels window opens, listing every label you have so far.

The Manage Labels window. Each label shows its colour and icon; use the pencil to edit or the bin to delete.

If you have no labels yet, the window shows No labels yet with a short prompt to create your first one. Click Add Label at the bottom to get started.

Create a label

1. In the Manage Labels window, click Add Label.
2. Type a Label Name — for example Spicy or Gluten Free.
3. Pick a Color by clicking one of the coloured circles.
4. Pick an Icon by clicking one of the symbols in the grid.
5. Check the live Preview badge at the bottom, then click Create.

The new label appears in the list straight away and becomes available to tag dishes with.

Creating a label. Name it, choose a colour and icon, and watch the preview update as you go.

The fields, one by one

• Label Name — what guests read on the dish, such as Spicy, Vegan or Chef's Choice. If your menu is offered in more than one language, a translation field appears beneath the name so you can enter the label in each language.
• Color — a row of twelve preset colours: Red, Orange, Amber, Green, Emerald, Teal, Blue, Indigo, Purple, Pink, Rose and Gray. The circle you pick is outlined so you can see which is active.
• Icon — a grid of symbols. There is a flame for spicy, an ear of wheat for gluten, a leaf for vegetarian, a sprout for vegan, a milk carton for dairy, an egg, a fish for seafood, a warning triangle for allergens, and many more. Pick the one that reads clearest for the label.
• Preview — a small live badge showing exactly how the finished label will look with your chosen colour, icon and name.

Tip

Keep your colours meaningful and consistent. Reds and oranges read as a warning (spicy, contains nuts); greens read as friendly (vegetarian, vegan). Guests learn your colour code quickly when you use it the same way across the whole menu.

Allergen presets

Alongside the labels you create, Eighty-Six provides a managed set of the fourteen standard allergens — Gluten, Crustaceans, Eggs, Fish, Peanuts, Soybeans, Milk, Nuts, Celery, Mustard, Sesame, Sulphites, Lupin and Molluscs. Each is numbered 1 to 14 and shows that number on its badge.

These presets behave a little differently from your own labels:

• You don’t create or rename them. Their names are managed by Eighty-Six and translated automatically into every language your menu supports, so an allergen always reads correctly for each guest.
• You can still restyle them. Open a preset from the Manage Labels window and you can change its Color and Icon to match your menu — the name stays fixed. A short note in the window reminds you it is a managed allergen preset.
• They fill in automatically on import. When you build a menu by importing it from a link, Eighty-Six detects the allergens on each dish and attaches the matching presets for you, so you rarely have to tag allergens by hand.

Edit or delete a label

Every label in the Manage Labels window has two buttons on its row:

1. Click the pencil icon to open the label, change its name, colour or icon, and click Save.
2. Click the bin icon to remove the label. You are asked to confirm first.

Caution

Deleting a label removes it from every dish it was attached to — the confirmation message spells this out. If you only want to hide a label for now, it is safer to leave it in place and simply stop tagging new dishes with it.

Tag a dish with labels

Labels do nothing until you attach them to dishes. You do this from the dish form, not the label manager.

1. On the Menu page, add a new dish with Add Dish, or open an existing one to Edit Dish.
2. Scroll to the Labels section near the bottom of the form. Every label you have created, plus any allergen presets, appears as a small pill.
3. Click a pill to attach that label — it fills with the label’s colour to show it is selected. Click it again to remove it.
4. Attach as many labels as the dish needs, then click Save (or Create for a new dish).

Tagging a dish. Click a pill to attach the label; selected pills fill with their colour.

The Labels section only appears once you have at least one label, so create your labels first if you don’t see it.

Once saved, the labels show as coloured badges on the dish’s card in the CRM, and on your public booking page menu, so guests see them while they browse.

A tagged dish. The same badges appear on your public menu for guests to see.

A quick checklist

1. Open Menu, then Manage Labels.
2. Create a label for each thing you want to flag — spice level, dietary choices, house specials.
3. Restyle any allergen presets so their colours fit your menu.
4. Open each dish and tag it in the Labels section, then save.

Related

• Menus overview
• Your booking page
• Roles and plans