Is it bad practice to have different menu actions in the same table?

1. What would cause a menu to confuse a user?
2. What some alternative ways to present tabular data instead of the standard table in the UI?

What would cause a menu to confuse a user?

Users may not even realize that it's a menu if the options don't look clickable (or tappable). Menus may seem to be just decorative pictures or headings if you incorporate too many graphics, or adhere too strictly to principles of flat design. Ensure that your menus have enough visual weight.

What some alternative ways to present tabular data instead of the standard table in the UI?

In nutshell, it follows the principle of 'Less is more' by removing colors, removing grid lines, aligning items based their types (Numbers or String) etc. Also another method would be to use graphical elements like Pie Charts, graph bars etc.