Websites
Restaurant website must haves
A restaurant website must answer four questions within seconds on a phone: what you serve and for how much, when you are open, where you are, and how to book or order. Everything else, the story, the gallery, the events, matters only after those four are one tap away.
Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder
3 min read · Published
A restaurant website has one main job: get a hungry person from their phone to your table or your counter. That means the menu with prices, the hours, the address with a map, and a way to book or order, all reachable within seconds. The table under this article lists the essentials in priority order with the most common failure for each.
The menu, as text
Diners open restaurant sites to read the menu. Put it on the page as text, with prices, grouped by course. A PDF forces zooming and downloads; a photo of the paper menu is unreadable on a phone and invisible to search engines and screen readers. Mark dietary options consistently, such as V and GF, with a key at the top.
Text menus are also easier to keep current. When a price changes, you change a number, not a design file.
Hours you can trust
Hours are the second most checked detail and the most often wrong. Show them as a day by day table, and add a line for public holidays and seasonal closures. Keep them identical on your website and your Google Business Profile, because diners and search engines notice disagreements.
Address, map and the phone number
Put the address in text, with a map that has a directions link, near the hours. Make the phone number a tap to call link, not an image. If parking or the entrance is tricky, say so in a line under the map.
Booking or ordering
Decide how people should book or order and make it the main button on the page. For bookings, that might be a booking service link or a phone number. For takeaway, it might be pickup ordering on your own site, which keeps the customer and avoids per order app commission for regulars. The page on online ordering for restaurants explains how pickup orders work.
Real photos, used sparingly
Five strong photos of real dishes, the room and the team beat thirty average ones. Shoot in daylight near a window, keep backgrounds simple, and resize images before uploading so pages stay fast. Never use stock photos of dishes you do not serve.
Speed on phones
Most diners arrive on mobile data, often while standing in the street. Heavy photos, autoplay video and pop ups make them give up. A light page with text menus, compressed images and a map that only loads when needed feels instant. The page on Core Web Vitals explains what to measure.
Nice to have, after the essentials
The story of the place, chef profiles, events, a gift card or private dining page, and a newsletter for seasonal menus. Each is worthwhile once the essentials are right, and none replaces them.
How a menu site fits together in OneCraft
OneCraft’s Menu kind has three templates: a pizzeria with pickup ordering, hours and a map, a brunch cafe with photo rows and a gallery, and a food truck with where to find the truck this week and a newsletter. The menu section shows dishes as printed columns with dotted leaders or as photo rows; with the store switched on and pickup enabled, dishes get Add buttons and an order bar, paid through Stripe Checkout. Opening hours sections, a map that loads near the screen and a contact section complete the page. Published menu sites can be installed to phone home screens by default, and the home page carries LocalBusiness structured data with your address and hours when the site has them. The restaurant menu website maker and the Pizzeria template show it in practice.
A monthly ten minute check
- Compare every price on the site with the current menu.
- Check this month’s public holidays against your hours.
- Tap the phone link and the directions link on your own phone.
- Place a test booking or order if you take them online.
- Replace any photo of a dish that has changed.
| Priority | Must have | Common failure |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Menu as text with prices | A PDF or a photo of the paper menu |
| 2 | Opening hours, including public holidays | Hours that changed last season |
| 3 | Address and a map with directions | An address only in the footer image |
| 4 | Phone as a tap to call link | A number shown as an image |
| 5 | A way to book or order | A booking link buried on another page |
| 6 | Photos of real dishes and the room | Stock photos of food you do not serve |
| 7 | Dietary information | No way to see vegetarian or gluten free options |
| 8 | Fast pages on phones | Large uncompressed photos and autoplay video |
Questions people ask
Should my restaurant menu be a PDF?
A text menu is better: it reads on a phone without zooming, search engines can read the dishes, screen readers can read it aloud and it is easy to update. Keep a printable PDF as an extra link if you like, but not as the main menu.
Do I need online ordering on my restaurant website?
Not necessarily. Many restaurants list the menu and take bookings by phone or a booking service. Pickup ordering on your own site makes sense when takeaway is a real part of the business and you want to avoid delivery app commission on regulars.
How do I get my restaurant to show on Google Maps?
Claim and complete your Google Business Profile with the same name, address, phone and hours as your website, and add photos. Link your website from the profile. Structured data on your site that states your address and hours also helps search engines connect the two.
What photos should a restaurant website have?
Real photos of your dishes, your room and your people, taken in good light. A few strong images beat many average ones. Avoid stock photos of food you do not serve, which disappoint diners when the real plate arrives at the table.
How often should I update my restaurant website?
Whenever the menu, prices or hours change, and check it monthly. Public holiday hours, seasonal menus and closures are the details diners check most. An out of date website sends people to the door when you are closed, which costs more than any update.
Written by
Nuwan Madhusanka · Co-founder
Works across the builders and the export paths: how a form becomes a PDF, how a flyer canvas becomes a print file, and how a signed document carries its audit trail.
LinkedIn profileWritten and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked .
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