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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-15T14:09:58+00:00

I have an food ordering system that has main item such as latte, long

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I have an food ordering system that has main item such as latte, long black, flat white, espresso, americano etc. Each item is stored in a DB as follows.

*db missing unnecessary columns 

  +----+----------------+-------------+
  | id | item_name      | price       |
  +----+----------------+-------------+
  | 1  | latte          | 2.0000      |
  +----+----------------+-------------+
  | 2  | long black     | 2.5000      |
  +----+----------------+-------------+
  | 3  | flat white     | 3.0000      |
  +----+----------------+-------------+
  | 4  | americano      | 2.0000      |
  +----+----------------+-------------+

I need to add sub-options to each item but each item will have unique set of options for example americano will have a milk type, sugar type. Flat white will have a milk type also but will need to be a different menu as americano may not require a milk option so will have a different submenu. For example.

   Flat white milk menu 
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | id | item_name      | submenu_id |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 1  | soy            |     1      |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 2  | rice           |     1      |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 3  | regular        |     1      |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 4  | trim           |     1      |
  +----+----------------+------------+

   americano milk menu 
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | id | item_name      | submenu_id |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 5  | soy            |     2      |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 6  | rice           |     2      |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 7  | regular        |     2      |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 8  | trim           |     2      |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 9  | no Milk        |     2      |
  +----+----------------+------------+

Then there may be a common item such as sugar…

         sugar
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | id | item_name      | submenu_id |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 10 | Sugar          |     3      |
  +----+----------------+------------+
  | 11 | no Sugar       |     3      |
  +----+----------------+------------+

What would be the best way to store the hierarchy in the DB? For example flat white would need the values 1,3 americano will need 2,3. The same kind of system may be required for something that requires many more options. I need to be able to pull these out and load each sub option with javascript.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Does each sub-option belong to one option only or two several options? I imagine that sugar would belong to each option….

    In which case, you will need three tables: an options table such as you already have (id/name/price), a sub-options table (id/name) and a join table (option/sub-option). You could probably combine the options and sub-options tables by adding a flag field, although in this case you would have to ensure that the join table is populated correctly.

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