A good restaurant or café website should answer the questions a potential customer has before they decide where to eat: what is on the menu, where you are, when you are open, what the place feels like and how they can book or order.
Hospitality websites are unusually practical.
A visitor may already be standing nearby.
They may be comparing three places before dinner.
They may have found you through Google Maps.
They may want to check whether there is vegetarian food, whether Sunday lunch is served, or whether they can reserve a table.
The website should make those answers easy.
The menu should be easy to find and easy to use
The menu is often the most important content on the site.
Do not hide it.
A customer should not need to open three navigation levels or download a badly formatted PDF just to see what you serve.
A PDF can be useful as a printable extra.
It should not automatically be the only way to read the menu on a phone.
A proper web menu is easier to scan, easier to update and easier for search engines to understand.
If the menu changes constantly, the website setup should reflect that rather than forcing staff into a cumbersome process.
Prices matter more in hospitality than in many service businesses
Customers expect to see them.
A menu without prices introduces unnecessary uncertainty.
If there are seasonal dishes or market-price items, those can be handled honestly.
But for ordinary restaurant and café menus, pricing is part of the product.
This is not the same debate as a bespoke consulting project where the final price depends on scope.
The customer wants to know whether lunch costs €12 or €35.
Tell them.
Opening hours need to be correct everywhere
Wrong opening hours are one of the fastest ways to damage trust.
The website.
Google Business Profile.
Facebook.
Booking platform.
They should agree.
Temporary holiday hours deserve attention too.
A customer making a wasted trip will not care which platform had the old information.
This is a good example of why the website and Google Business Profile should work together.
Location should be obvious
Address.
Map.
Parking information if useful.
Nearby landmark if the premises is awkward to find.
Phone number.
The website should help the customer physically arrive.
For a destination restaurant, there may be more to explain.
For a town-centre café, a clear address and map may be enough.
Do not make the location feel like an afterthought.
The website needs to communicate atmosphere
This is where photography becomes commercially important.
People do not choose restaurants purely from a list of dishes.
They also choose the room.
The presentation.
The feeling.
The food.
Real photography can do more work here than almost any amount of descriptive copy.
I would prioritise good images of:
the food;
the interior;
the exterior where useful;
the people;
and the actual experience.
That is one of the business types where I think professional photography can be particularly worthwhile.
Real food beats generic stock food
A stock image of a beautiful plate is actively unhelpful if the restaurant does not serve it.
Food photography is not just decoration.
It is evidence.
If the images appear to show what customers can expect, they should be genuine.
A smaller number of real strong photographs is better than a gallery full of anonymous images.
Gavin's take
Restaurant websites are a good example of where technical ambition can get in the way. Most customers want to see the food, menu, price level, opening hours, location and a reliable way to book. I would spend effort making those excellent before commissioning custom reservation technology.
Reservations should use the simplest reliable route
If the restaurant already uses an established reservation platform, I would usually integrate or link to that.
I would not automatically recommend paying to build a bespoke booking system.
A restaurant booking system has real operational requirements:
availability;
table management;
party size;
confirmation;
cancellation;
possibly deposits;
possibly no-show policies.
If a specialist platform already handles those well, the website should make the route into it seamless.
The website does not become less custom because a specialist system handles a specialist job.
Online ordering deserves the same thinking
If the business offers takeaway or delivery through an existing platform, connect to it clearly.
If direct ordering is commercially important, then the right system may justify deeper integration.
But the website should not recreate Deliveroo, Just Eat or a complete ordering backend merely to avoid using a third party.
The technical choice should follow the business model.
The first screen should establish place and appetite
A restaurant homepage can be more visual than many other business sites.
That is appropriate.
A strong image can sell the experience.
But the visitor should still know:
what kind of place this is;
where it is;
and what they can do next.
View menu.
Book a table.
Order online.
Those are sensible primary actions.
The hero should not become a full-screen video that hides all practical information until it finishes.
Mobile matters enormously
A diner may discover the business while walking around town.
They may be checking the menu from a taxi.
They may be looking for a phone number five minutes before arrival.
The mobile website needs to work quickly.
Menu text should be readable.
Buttons should be easy to tap.
The booking route should not require zooming.
Large photography should be optimised so the experience does not become painfully slow.
This is exactly the kind of business where mobile-first design has a direct commercial role.
Google Maps may be the first touchpoint
For local hospitality, many customers will encounter reviews, photos, opening hours and directions before they ever click the website.
That makes Google Business Profile particularly important.
The website should deepen the experience.
More complete menu.
Better photography.
Story.
Events.
Private dining.
Gift vouchers.
Booking.
The channels support each other.
Reviews are useful, but do not duplicate the entire internet
You can show selected customer feedback.
That helps.
But the website does not need to become an archive of every review ever written.
A few credible quotes and a route to current review platforms may be enough.
The site should also make the restaurant itself the main event.
What about the story?
Hospitality can benefit from personality.
Why did the restaurant open?
Is the food influenced by somewhere specific?
Is it family-run?
Is produce local?
Is the chef part of the brand?
Those things can differentiate the business.
Do not force a story if there is no meaningful one.
But if the people and idea behind the restaurant are part of the attraction, the website should say so.
Events and private dining can deserve their own pages
Christmas menus.
Private functions.
Corporate bookings.
Weddings.
Live music.
Special tasting nights.
If these are meaningful revenue lines, give them proper space.
They may attract different search intent from the ordinary restaurant visit.
This is an example of adding pages because the customer journey differs, not because a package included ten pages.
Accessibility and menu clarity matter
Restaurant menus can become visually elaborate.
Tiny text.
Low contrast.
Decorative fonts.
Images of text.
That may look attractive and be frustrating to use.
The menu needs to remain readable.
Design should create appetite without making the customer fight the content.
What I'd do
I would design from the mobile customer journey backwards: find the place, decide whether it looks right, check menu and prices, then book or get directions. Real food and atmosphere should carry far more of the visual weight than generic hospitality stock photography.
Gavin’s perspective
Built by Gavin's approach
For a restaurant or café, I would begin with the customer journey.
How are people finding you?
What do they most often need before visiting?
Do reservations matter?
Does takeaway matter?
What part of the atmosphere needs to come through?
What makes the place different from the ten alternatives nearby?
Then build around that.
I would much rather integrate a reliable booking system and spend the effort on presentation, menu usability and local discovery than build an unnecessary custom reservations backend.
The bottom line
A restaurant or café website should make it easy to decide and easy to visit.
Show the menu.
Show prices.
Keep opening hours accurate.
Make location obvious.
Use real photography.
Make booking or ordering simple.
Optimise the mobile experience.
And let specialist booking or ordering tools do specialist jobs where that is the sensible choice.
Need a restaurant website that makes the place look as good online as it does in person?
See my website options or send me the current website, menu and booking setup.
That is enough to start working out what should stay simple and what deserves more attention.
---