For restaurants
Websites for restaurants
A menu locked in a PDF is the most expensive mistake in hospitality.
Restaurant websites fail at a small number of things, and they fail at them almost universally. The menu is a PDF, the opening hours are wrong, and booking takes three taps too many, all while the customer is standing outside in the rain deciding between you and the place across the road. I build restaurant websites that get those three right first and worry about atmosphere second.
What your customer is actually deciding
Someone is choosing where to eat, usually within the next two hours, almost always on a phone, often while walking. They have three questions and no patience: are you open, what is on the menu and what does it cost, and can I get a table. A restaurant site that answers all three in under ten seconds beats a beautiful one that takes thirty, every single time, and the decision is frequently made outside your door.
Where most restaurants’ websites go wrong
The menu as a PDF. It downloads slowly, opens in a separate viewer, is unreadable without pinching, and search engines cannot use a word of it, so you are invisible for every dish you serve. The second failure is opening hours that are wrong or missing, particularly over bank holidays, which turns a hungry customer into an annoyed one. The third is booking that bounces the user through several screens on a weak signal.
It is raining, it is seven o'clock, and a couple are standing on the pavement deciding between you and the restaurant opposite. They look you up. Your menu is a four megabyte PDF that will not open properly on one bar of signal. The place opposite has its menu as a normal web page with prices. They are inside and sitting down before your file has finished downloading.
The pages a restaurant actually needs
Not a generic five-page template. These are the pages that earn their place on a restaurant website.
- 01
The menu as a real web page
Not a PDF, not a photograph of a printed menu. Actual text with prices, readable on a phone in one hand. This is the most visited page on any restaurant site and the one most often broken.
- 02
Booking in one step
Whatever system you use, it needs to work on a phone without an account and without several screens. Every extra tap between deciding and booking loses people who had already chosen you.
- 03
Opening hours that are correct
On the site and matching your Google Business Profile exactly, including bank holidays and seasonal changes. Two sources disagreeing is worse than one being slightly out of date.
- 04
Dietary information
Vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and allergens. Frequently the deciding factor for a group, because whoever in the party has the restriction usually chooses the venue for everyone.
- 05
Private hire, functions and set menus
The highest-value bookings you take and often the least well explained. Capacity, set menu prices, deposits, and how far ahead to book, especially through the Christmas period.
Three mistakes worth fixing first
If you do nothing else with your current site, start here. All three are cheap to put right.
- 01
The menu is a PDF
It is slow, it is awkward on a phone, and search engines cannot read the contents, so none of your dishes exist as far as search is concerned. Putting the menu into real web text is usually the single highest-value change a restaurant can make to its site.
- 02
Hours that disagree with Google
Customers check both and a mismatch reads as a business that does not have its act together. Worse, they may turn up when you are closed, and that is the version of you they will remember and tell people about.
- 03
Booking hidden behind several taps
The customer has already decided to eat with you and you are now asking them to work for it on a phone with one bar of signal. Every screen between decision and confirmation loses a share of them to the place across the road.
What people type when they need a restaurant
Roughly the shape of the searches worth being found for. Put your own town where the brackets are, because local intent is where a small business can genuinely outrank a bigger one.
- restaurants in [your town]
- [cuisine] restaurant near me
- book a table [your town]
- sunday roast [your town]
- private dining [your town]
I set this up during the build rather than selling it back to you afterwards as an SEO package. What I will not do is promise you the top spot, because nobody can honestly promise that.
What it costs
A website for a restaurant starts at £1,000 for up to five pages, live in about two weeks. You get one number in writing before anything starts, and it does not move unless you ask for something that was not in the brief. Hosting and your domain run separately at roughly £100 to £150 a year, and the care plan is optional.
The full breakdown is on the pricing page. You talk to me the whole way through, because there is nobody else to talk to. I have been doing this for 12 years and I am still reachable after launch, with 30 days of free tweaks while you settle in.
What clients say
“Jay created a new website for me, exactly how I wanted it. Jay went above and beyond my expectations. Highly recommended.”
“Jay is a kind, devoted and enthusiastic professional. He will be eager to work efficiently on your project and deliver it in no time.”
“Just had Jay make me a website and new logo. Very knowledgeable and great at what he does. I didn’t know what I wanted and left it to Jay - very happy with end result.”
Questions restaurants ask
Other trades I build for
Websites for beauty therapists, Websites for cleaning companies, Websites for tattoo studios. There is also a general page for trades and, if being local matters to you, web design in Essex.
Tell me about the business
A couple of lines is plenty. I will come back with what it would cost, how long it takes, and what I would need from you.
Send a message
It goes straight to my inbox and I will get back to you as soon as I can.