Shawarmery: Menu Board on Seven Screens

Starting point

The first menus ran in 2025 from USB sticks on ordinary TVs, and that was exactly the problem: the sticks were overloaded, playback unreliable, and every change meant someone walking up to the sets. The second shop added four portrait-mounted Samsung displays, commercial units on which you cannot simply play a video.

Approach

In April 2026 I redesigned the menus, first in landscape for the three screens of the first shop, then in portrait for the four in the new one. The animations are my own work, from a new photo and video shoot to the finished 4K video.

Instead of USB sticks there is now a dedicated computer in the server rack, wired in and secured from the outside. It plays the videos, and through a dashboard the team controls from a phone which menu runs, in what order and when adverts come on. For the Samsung screens I wrote a custom program and activated it for each device individually. On top came a game that runs right on the screens: a shooter in the style of Space Invaders. The team starts it from the dashboard for a specific screen, which then shows a QR code and waits for a player. Whoever scans it enters a player name on their phone, uploads a profile picture and accepts the terms, which appear on the screen at the same time. The game is played on the big screen in the shop. Certain scores win prizes, each shown with a picture. Prizes, score thresholds and game characters are set by the team in the dashboard, down to putting their own faces on the characters.

Result

Since June 2026 all screens run reliably from one server, the menu is switched from a phone, and a new dish is an upload instead of a walk to the TV.