A restaurant’s site has four questions to answer within the first few seconds: what is there to eat, how much does it cost, when is it open and how do I get there. Whoever opens it is usually standing on the pavement or sitting in the car, phone in hand, choosing between you and the place next door.
Social media does not solve this: the opening hours are buried among the posts, and the menu is a photo that cannot be read. We build the site so that changing a price or the holiday opening hours is a one-minute job for someone at the venue.
The menu written on the page, not hidden in a PDF
A PDF is slow to download on mobile data, has to be pinched to zoom and often stays unchanged long after the prices have moved. Search engines find it harder to use than an ordinary page, so anyone searching for “papanasi” or “breakfast” in your area is less likely to end up at your door.
We build the menu as a separate content type: each dish is an entry with fixed fields, grouped by category. You change a price in one place and it changes everywhere, including on the page opened from the QR code on the table. A dish that is temporarily off is hidden with a tick box, without being deleted.
- Name and short description.
- Price and portion weight.
- Allergens: a separate field, shown next to the dish.
- Labels: vegetarian, suitable for fasting, spicy, for children.
- Photograph: optional, and only if it shows your own dish.
A place for allergens and the other mandatory information
Information about allergens, ingredients and the other details required by law is subject to rules that are checked with a food safety specialist or with the competent authority. We do not decide what has to be declared. We prepare the structure: fields for each dish, a key to the symbols and a visible place for the general notices.
That way the information sits next to the dish and is updated along with the recipe. Responsibility for its accuracy stays with the kitchen: the site displays what you enter.
Bookings, opening hours and the way to the door
There are two routes for bookings. The first: a short form (date, time, number of people, phone number) that sends the request to the venue, where someone confirms it. The second: if you already use a booking system that can be embedded in a website, we put it on the page so that people can book directly. The choice depends on how busy you are and on who answers requests during service.
We show the opening hours day by day, with exceptions for public holidays and private events, and keep them identical to those in the venue’s Google Business Profile. The map, directions for parking and the call button are visible on the home page. If you have a terrace or a play area, or you welcome pets, this is where you say so: these are the details that decide an outing.
A restaurant website that is fast on phones: images, structured data, caching
A venue’s site is opened mostly on mobile, so speed matters more than effects. The photographs are your own, taken at the venue and served in sizes that suit the screen. A full-screen video looks good on a laptop and eats into the visitor’s data on a phone, so we use it sparingly.
We add Restaurant structured data: information written into the page’s code, for search engines, about the type of cuisine, the address, the opening hours, the menu page and whether bookings are taken. It does not oblige the search engine to display anything in particular, but it helps it understand the page correctly.
- WordPress with a custom theme: no unnecessary plugins weighing the page down.
- Elementor Pro: a visual editor for the brochure-style pages, so that you can change them yourself.
- Modern image formats and lazy loading: photos download only when they come on screen.
- Caching: pages are served ready-made, without being rebuilt on every visit.
The mistakes that keep recurring and the stages of the project
The usual mistakes: a menu updated on the site but not in the Google Business Profile; stock photographs that look nothing like what arrives on the plate; a sign-up pop-up that covers the opening hours.
Whether the site is worth having shows in the calls, bookings and requests for directions that start from it. To get there, the work proceeds in the order below.
- How the venue runs: how many menus you have (daytime, evening, seasonal), who updates them, how you take bookings now.
- The structure of the site and entering the menu in the admin panel.
- The design, built around your photographs.
- Testing on ordinary phones, on mobile data, not on the fast office network.
- Launch, and training for whoever will change the prices and opening hours.
Frequently asked questions
Can I keep the PDF menu as well?
Yes, as a version to download or print. The main version remains the one written on the page, which is easy to read both for people on their phones and for search engines.
Do I need online ordering on the site?
Only if delivery is a significant part of your sales and you have someone to handle the orders. Otherwise a link to the delivery platforms you are listed on is enough, and an ordering plugin (WooCommerce) can be added later.
What does the price of a restaurant website depend on?
On the size of the menu and how many languages it comes in, on how you take bookings, on the photography and on online ordering, if there is any. A café with a short menu means far less work than a restaurant with events, several dining rooms and delivery.
This is a typical project description: it shows how we usually approach this kind of work and does not present a project carried out for a particular client. Every real project starts from your company’s situation, and the stages, timescales and price are agreed after the initial discussion.