What a deal is#

A deal is a card. It carries a name, a line about what is included, a price, a photo and a small badge, and it shows up where customers are already looking: your home page, your ordering page, your menu and your app.

A deal does not change any price by itself. It advertises. The thing that actually takes money off an order is a discount, which is a separate tool with its own rules. See Discounts and Coupon Codes.

Most restaurants use both. The deal is the poster in the window. The discount, or a real combo item priced at the deal price, is what happens at the register.

Where your deals appear#

Turn deals on and the same cards show in several places at once:

Your website home page, in a deals section.
Your ordering page, under the Deals tab.
Your menu page, if you turn on the menu setting described below.
Your mobile app, on the home screen.
Your phone agent, if you use Dinevate Voice AI. It is told the name, the description and the price of every deal, so it can answer "what are your specials?".

Create a deal#

Sign in to dinevate.com.
Open Ordering Settings, then click the Deals & Specials card.
Click Create New Deal.
Pick how you want to build it. Let Dinevate AI Build Your Deal reads your menu and writes one for you, including a menu item people can order. Create a Deal Yourself gives you the empty form. The AI route is limited to 5 deals a day and the page tells you how many are left.
Fill in the card, then click Create Deal.

You can keep up to 10 deals per location, and two deals cannot share the same name.

What goes in each field#

Deal Name. The headline, up to 20 characters. "2 Large Pizzas $24.99" beats "Our Family Value Bundle Offer".
What's Included. One line under the name, up to 80 characters.
Badge Label. The small tag on the corner of the card, up to 20 characters. "Limited Time", "Best Value", "Weekdays".
Price. What the card shows, up to 6 characters. Type it the way you want it read: $24.99, or 50% Off.
Accent Color. The color of the Order Now button on the card.
Fine Print. Small text under the deal, up to 100 characters. "Online only. Pickup only. One per order."
Deal Photo. Use a real photo of the food. A card with a photo gets clicked, a card without one gets scrolled past. If you leave it empty, Dinevate borrows a picture from your website gallery.
Link to Menu Item. What opens when someone taps the card. Leave it on Link to online order page and the card sends people to your menu. Pick an item and the card opens that item, ready to add to the cart.

Tip: Deals are read in one second on a phone. Short name, one line of detail, one clear price. If you need three lines to explain it, it is a menu item, not a deal.

Make the deal orderable#

A card that only advertises makes people hunt for the offer. A card linked to a menu item lets them tap once and be in the cart. That is the difference between a deal that sells and a deal that decorates.

There is one rule to know: the Link to Menu Item list only shows items that live in a menu section with the word "deal" in its name. If your menu has no such section, the list is empty and nothing can be linked.

So build the section first:

Open Menus.
Add a section called Deals.
Add your combos to it as normal menu items, priced the way you want to sell them, with their own options and photos.
Move the section where you want it in the menu.
Now go back to the deal and pick the item under Link to Menu Item.

If you use Let Dinevate AI Build Your Deal, it creates the Deals section and the item for you, then links them.

About the price on a linked deal#

Type 0 in Price on a linked deal and the card shows the item's own price instead, kept in step with the item forever after. Change the item, the card follows.

One catch worth knowing: your home page cannot work that price out, because it does not load your menu. A 0 priced deal shows no price there, while the ordering page and the menu page show it correctly. If you want a price visible everywhere, type it into the Price field.

Once a deal is linked, editing it shows a second panel, Connected Menu Item, with the full item form inside it. That is where you change what people actually buy.

Turning deals on and off#

At the top of the Deals & Specials page there is one big switch. When it is on it reads Deals Are Visible, when it is off, Deals Are Hidden.

Hiding your deals also hides every menu item they are linked to. That is deliberate: a hidden deal whose $9.99 combo is still sitting in the menu is not hidden at all. Turning deals back on brings those items back.

So if a linked item disappears from your menu, check this switch before you go looking for the item.

Under the visibility switch there is a second one: Deals Show On Your Menu Page.

Turn it on and your deals appear at the very top of your menu page, before the first section, with their own entry in the category bar. Someone browsing your menu sees the offer before they see the first appetizer, and tapping a linked deal takes them into the item.

Turn it off and your menu page looks exactly as it did. Nothing else changes: the home page, the ordering page and the app are governed by the switch above it.

Two small things:

If your menu already has a section called Deals, the card block calls itself Featured Deals so you do not end up with two identical buttons in the category bar.
Your deals have to be visible for this to do anything. If deals are hidden, the menu page shows nothing until you turn them back on.

More than one location#

If you run several locations, every deal you save asks one more question: Save this deal for:

This location only. Keeps the other locations exactly as they are.
Pick locations. You tick the ones you want.
All locations. Every location in your group gets it.

The same three choices appear on the visibility switch and on the menu page switch, so you can advertise in one town and stay quiet in another.

What happens when a deal goes to several locations#

Each location gets its own copy of the card. Editing or deleting the deal later, with a scope that includes them, updates the copies too. Deals are matched across locations by name, so two deals that share a name are treated as the same deal.

The linked item is matched separately, and by the item's name, preferring an item in a section with the same name. If your downtown store calls it "Family Box" and the beach store calls it "Family Meal Box", the beach store gets the card without a link. It will still advertise, it just will not open anything. Give the item the same name at every location where you want the link to work.

The one that catches people out#

Locations that share one website share one home page, and that home page belongs to your main location. Whoever lands on your web address sees the main location's deals, even if they picked another location a minute ago.

Your ordering pages, your menu pages and your app are per location and always correct. It is the shared home page, and only the home page, that speaks for the main location.

Example: Rossi's has three locations on one website. Downtown runs a $9.99 lunch box, Beach and Airport do not. Save it with This location only and it is right everywhere it matters: Downtown's ordering page, menu page and app all carry it, and the other two do not. But the shared home page shows the main location's deals to everyone, so if Downtown is not your main location the lunch box will not be the first thing a visitor sees.

If your locations share a website and run different offers, do not lean on the cards alone. Give each location a Deals section in its own menu, with the offers as real items.

Every reason this works better is a consequence of what a card is and what a menu item is:

A menu item can be ordered. It has a price, options, a photo and a place in the cart. A card is a picture that has to point at something.
It follows the customer's location. Menus are per location, always, on every page. There is no main location speaking for anyone else.
It obeys hours. Give the section lunch hours and the offer disappears at 3pm on its own.
It gets found. Menu items are on your menu page and in search results, and your phone agent can sell them by name.
Nothing depends on matching names across locations. Each location's section is its own.

Then keep two or three cards on top for the picture and the badge, linked to those items. Cards for attention, menu section for the actual selling.

When a deal is not showing#

Nothing shows anywhere. The switch reads Deals Are Hidden, or you have no deals saved.

Nothing on the menu page, but the home page is fine. Deals Show On Your Menu Page is off for that location.

The wrong location's deals on the home page. Expected on a shared website. The home page carries the main location's deals. Check the ordering page for that location to see its own.

The card has no price. A linked deal priced 0 cannot show a price on the home page. Type the price into the Price field.

Tapping the card opens the ordering page instead of the item. The deal has no linked item, or at this location the item name did not match the one it was copied from.

A menu item vanished. If it was linked to a deal, check whether deals were hidden. Turning them back on restores it.

The Link to Menu Item list is empty. You have no menu section with "deal" in its name yet. Create one and add the item.

You cannot open the Deals page at all. Deals are managed by the account owner and by Dinevate staff. A team member with ordering settings permission still cannot open it.

Questions#

Does a deal reduce anything at checkout? No. It is a display. Use a discount for a real reduction, or price a menu item at the deal price.

How many deals can I have? Ten per location.

Can two deals have the same name? No, and the name is also how Dinevate recognizes the same deal at another location.

Do deals expire on their own? No. A deal runs until you delete it or hide it. If you want an offer that ends by itself, use a discount with an expiration date, or a menu section with hours.

Can my staff manage deals? Not today. The Deals page is for the account owner and Dinevate staff.

What does the AI wizard actually do? It reads your menu, writes the card, creates a matching item in a Deals section and links the two, then shows it to you before anything is saved. You can edit every field afterwards.

Deals and Specials