Lesson 3 Lab — MenuItemsController (Full CRUD)

Build a MenuItemsController with all five CRUD operations, following the finished StaffController from the guide as your model. MenuItem has no password, so there's no BCrypt here — it's the plainest possible full-CRUD entity.

MenuItem has a CategoryId, but for this lesson treat it as just an integer column — a plain foreign-key value. In the next lesson you'll learn how to return the related Category object alongside it.

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The MenuItem entity

Add Models/MenuItem.cs:

using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema;

namespace TableServe.Api.Models;

public class MenuItem
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    [StringLength(30)]
    public string Name { get; set; } = string.Empty;
    [Column(TypeName = "decimal(11,2)")]
    public decimal Price { get; set; }
    public int CategoryId { get; set; }
}

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Steps

1. Add MenuItem.cs to Models/
2. Add DbSet<MenuItem> MenuItems to TableServeDbContext
3. Run Add-Migration AddMenuItem then Update-Database
4. Verify the MenuItems table exists in SQL Server Object Explorer
5. Seed some menu items (Categories must already exist from the Lesson 2 lab):

INSERT INTO [dbo].[MenuItems] ([Name], [Price], [CategoryId]) VALUES ('Mozzarella Sticks', 9.99, 1)
INSERT INTO [dbo].[MenuItems] ([Name], [Price], [CategoryId]) VALUES ('Spinach Artichoke Dip', 11.99, 1)
INSERT INTO [dbo].[MenuItems] ([Name], [Price], [CategoryId]) VALUES ('Grilled Salmon', 21.99, 2)
INSERT INTO [dbo].[MenuItems] ([Name], [Price], [CategoryId]) VALUES ('Classic Burger', 14.99, 2)
INSERT INTO [dbo].[MenuItems] ([Name], [Price], [CategoryId]) VALUES ('Caesar Salad', 7.99, 3)
INSERT INTO [dbo].[MenuItems] ([Name], [Price], [CategoryId]) VALUES ('Chocolate Lava Cake', 8.99, 4)
INSERT INTO [dbo].[MenuItems] ([Name], [Price], [CategoryId]) VALUES ('Iced Tea', 3.99, 5)

1. Create Controllers/MenuItemsController.cs with GetAll, GetById, Create, Update, Delete — same shape as StaffController, minus the password hashing
2. Run the project and verify your endpoints using the MenuItems folder in the Insomnia collection

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Verify in Insomnia

With the project running (no login required — the endpoints are open), expand the MenuItems folder:

1. Get All Menu Items → expect 200 OK with an array
2. Get Menu Item by Id → expect 200 OK with Mozzarella Sticks
3. Create Menu Item → expect 201 Created with a generated id
4. Update Menu Item → expect 200 OK with the changed fields
5. Delete Menu Item → expect 204 No Content
6. Check the Tests tab on each response — all green

You just wrote your first full-CRUD controller on your own. This is exactly the pattern you'll repeat when you build ProductsController on PRS in the capstone — same five methods, a PartNumber and VendorId instead of a CategoryId.

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Stretch challenges

Optional — for when you finish early. Not needed for the capstone. [Reinforce] builds on what you just did; [Reach] goes past the guide and needs some research.

• Search endpoint — [Reinforce] — add an optional ?name= filter to GetAll that returns only menu items whose Name contains the search text.
• Reject duplicates — [Reinforce] — before creating, fetch to check no menu item with the same Name already exists (the same "confirm by fetch" idea you use everywhere else), and return BadRequest with a message if it does.
• Model validation — [Reach] — add data-annotation attributes ([Required], [StringLength], [Range] on Price) to the model and watch [ApiController] return a 400 automatically when they're violated. Not covered in the guide — research: Model validation in ASP.NET Core.

Finished these and want more? See stretch-api-challenges.md for bigger challenges that span the whole API pass.