Websites for restaurants, in the order people actually need things

Hours, location and menu come before anything else

Those three answers are why almost every visitor arrived, and most restaurant sites make each of them work for it.

Hours should be visible without scrolling and should be right, including holidays and any difference between kitchen and bar. Nothing damages a restaurant faster than somebody arriving to a locked door.

The address should be text that a phone can turn into directions in one tap, alongside anything the visitor needs to know about parking or how to find the entrance.

The menu should be one obvious click from the top of the page, and it should be a page rather than a download.

Everything else, meaning the story, the photography, the awards, has a place and it is below those three. Atmosphere sells the restaurant once the practical questions are settled and gets in the way before that.

The test is whether somebody could answer all three in ten seconds on a phone. Most restaurant sites fail it, and the ones that pass convert better without looking any worse.

The photographs have to be your food

Stock imagery is recognizable, and in this category it directly contradicts what the site is claiming.

A restaurant site is selling the specific experience of eating your food in your room. Generic photography of somebody else's dishes undermines that at the first glance.

It also creates a concrete disappointment. A customer who arrives expecting the plate they saw and gets something different has been misled, and reviews say so.

The room matters as much as the plates. People are deciding whether the atmosphere suits an occasion, and photographs of the actual space answer a question the menu cannot.

Photography needs refreshing as the menu changes. A gallery full of dishes that came off two seasons ago is a maintenance problem that reads as neglect.

Image weight is the usual technical failure. Food photography is large, restaurant sites are opened on phones on poor connections, and unoptimized images are the most common reason a restaurant site is slow.

Somebody is standing outside on a phone

A meaningful share of visits come from people already nearby, deciding in the moment.

The visitor may be on the sidewalk, in a car outside, or walking down the street with a group waiting on them. They have seconds and one hand.

That argues for speed above almost everything. Heavy hero video and large uncompressed images are exactly wrong for the person most likely to become a customer in the next ten minutes.

Tap targets matter. Phone numbers should dial, addresses should open a map, and the menu link should be large enough to hit while walking.

Anything requiring a second load is a risk. A menu that downloads a file, a reservation system that redirects twice, or a page that shifts as it loads all lose that visitor.

Test it the way it is used: on a phone, on cellular, outdoors, in a hurry. It is a different experience from the one the site was designed in.

Events and catering need a path, not a contact form

The most valuable inquiries a restaurant site receives are handled by the least specific part of it.

A planner asking about a private dinner or a catering order has specific questions: capacity, minimums, what is included, whether the space can be taken privately, and how far ahead to book.

A general contact form answers none of that and asks them to describe their event into a box, which means the first exchange is spent establishing what a page could have said.

A proper events section with the details, followed by an inquiry form that asks the right things, produces inquiries a manager can respond to properly rather than a message that needs three emails.

Photographs of the space set up for events do more here than food photography, because the planner is picturing their group in the room.

Response time is part of the design. These inquiries frequently arrive during service and go unanswered until somebody remembers, by which point the planner has emailed three other restaurants.

Ordering and reservation links break quietly

The most commercially important links on a restaurant site point at other companies' systems, and nobody checks them.

Ordering, reservations and gift cards typically run through third parties. Those integrations change, expire and break, and the failure is silent.

A broken ordering link is direct lost revenue that produces no error anybody sees. Somebody clicks, it fails, and they order somewhere else.

Checking them should be a routine task with somebody responsible, not something discovered when a customer mentions it.

The links also need to be current. Restaurants that change reservation providers or ordering platforms frequently leave the old link somewhere, and it may still resolve to a page that no longer works.

Where these open in a new window or hand off to another brand's interface, it is worth making sure the customer still knows they are ordering from you. A confusing handoff produces abandoned orders and support calls.

Local rules affect what the site can say

The structure above suits any restaurant. What you may advertise about hours and service does not.

Alcohol licensing conditions, patio and sidewalk permits with their own hours and noise rules, and health permitting are all administered locally and change more often than a website does.

Anything published that depends on them, including service hours and outdoor seating, is worth confirming with the local authority rather than carried over.

We work through local specifics market by market, and we are glad to go through yours with you.