Dumb question for restaurant owners about menu photos
So first things first, I just spent a few weeks traveling around Thailand and ate at probably 40+ places and one thing that kept happening is that the menu photos looked like someone took them with a flip phone in 2008 under fluorescent lights, but then the actual dish came out and it looked incredible.
This got me thinking. Im a developer and I like solving random problems that annoy me. What if you could just snap a photo of the actual plated dish and have AI generate a clean, professional looking version for your menu? Not some weird fake looking stock photo, but something that actually represents your food.
I messed around with this a here's a quick before/after to show what I mean.
I think this would be super cool to build! But before I waste time building something nobody wants I figured I'd ask people who actually run restaurants or work in kitchens.
A few genuine questions:
How do you currently handle menu photos? Like whats the actual workflow? Do you just take them yourself when you have a minute, hire someone, use stock images, or just skip photos entirely?
- Is this even a real problem or do most places just not care about menu photos?
- For those who do have nice menu photos, what did that cost you? Time and money wise.
- Would you trust AI generated images of your food or does that feel weird/dishonest somehow? Like would customers feel misled even if the image is based on your actual dish?
- Is there some obvious reason this doesnt exist already that Im missing? Usually when something seems like an easy fix there is a reason nobody did it.
Not trying to sell anything here, genuinely trying to figure out if this is worth building or if Im solving a problem that doesnt exist. Would love to hear from anyone who deals with this stuff.
Posted Dec 29, 2025, 7:58 PM UTC