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What a Restaurant Website Needs (and What It Doesn't)

Someone looking at a restaurant website is usually hungry and a bit impatient. They want to know what's on the menu, whether you're open, where you are, and how to get a table or order. Get those four right and the site is already doing its job. Everything else is a bonus.

By the ideas2pixels team

4 min read

A menu card with a plate and cutlery, showing what a restaurant website needs.

01

The four things

The menu, with prices and a note on common dietary needs. Opening hours that are easy to find and updated for bank holidays. Your address, a map, and a line about parking or nearby stations. And a booking or ordering button that's hard to miss, linked to whatever system you use. Put a phone number people can tap, too.

02

Please don't use a PDF menu

It's the most common mistake we see. A PDF is slow to open on a phone, awkward to read, and invisible to search engines. A menu written as text on the page loads fast, can be found by search, and you can change a price in a minute without redoing a design file.

03

Use your own photos

Real pictures of your food and your room beat stock images by a mile, even if they're not perfect. Show a handful of your best dishes and a sense of the place, and compress them so the page doesn't crawl.

04

Help people find you

Plenty of people find restaurants through the map, so fill in your Google Business Profile properly and keep your name, address and phone number the same everywhere. Ask regulars to leave a review, and reply to them.

05

What you can skip

Music that starts playing by itself. The full history of the building on the homepage. Fancy animations that make the page stutter on an older phone. Nobody's booking a table because of a spinning logo.

Common questions

Do I need online ordering?

Only if you do takeaway or delivery. If you do, make the order button prominent and link to a service that suits your kitchen.

How often should I update the menu?

Whenever dishes or prices change. An out-of-date menu is one of the most common complaints about restaurant sites.

Is a template a good place to start?

Yes. A well-made template gets you online quickly, and then it's personalised with your branding, photos and menu.

Want us to build it for you?

One setup fee, then a simple monthly plan with your domain, hosting, support and edits included.

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