Restaurant website design: They are hungry
and standing outside.
Somebody is on the pavement deciding whether to come in, or at home deciding where to go on Friday. They want the menu, the prices, whether you are open and whether there is a table. Nothing a restaurant website design company usually sells you.
Menu·Booking·Hours·Ordering
The job
Almost every restaurant website buries those four things under something designed to look appetising. A PDF menu that will not open on a phone is the single commonest fault, and it loses people at the exact moment they were deciding.
So this is a small site built properly. The menu as real text, the booking working, the hours correct including the bank holiday, and photographs of the actual food.
A restaurant website designer, not an agency: The whole list, nothing extra.
Every one of these is in the price. If a job needs something that is not here, it is in the written scope before you say yes, not on the invoice after.
The menu as text, not a PDF
Readable on a phone without pinching, and readable by search engines, which a PDF is not. This one change does more than anything else on a restaurant site.
Booking in three taps
Connected to whatever you already use, or a form that reaches the right person. What matters is that it takes seconds and works on a phone at 7pm on a Friday.
Hours that are right
Including the bank holiday and the week you close. Wrong hours cost you a customer and a review, and they are wrong on most restaurant sites.
Dietary information, findable
Vegan, gluten, allergens. For the person doing the choosing this is often the deciding factor, and it should not require ringing you.
Photographs of your food
Yours, not stock. People are unusually good at spotting a stock photograph of a burger, and it undermines everything around it.
Ordering, if it is worth it
Direct ordering keeps the commission the apps take, and it only pays if you have the volume. I will tell you honestly which side of that line you are on.
Sitemap and page structure
What pages exist, how they relate, and what each one is for. This is where SEO is won or lost, before a line of code.
Design, if there is none
I will design it: a site that looks considered and does the job. If the brand underneath it needs doing too, that is its own piece of work and it has its own page.
Build
From your design or mine, on a platform that suits the team who will keep it running rather than the one I enjoy most.
Real content in
Your words and pictures loaded and laid out, not lorem ipsum with a note to fill it later. If an existing site is being replaced, moving it across is its own job: see website migration.
Accessibility and performance
Keyboard, focus order, contrast and labels checked, not assumed. Core Web Vitals measured on real pages, then fixed.
Launch and handover
A checklist worked through line by line, then documentation and a walkthrough with whoever picks it up.
Sounds like you if
“We have been quoted before and never seen what we were paying for.”
One page
A single scrolling page, £600. A launch, a test, or a business that needs to exist online by Friday.
Five pages
Home, about, services, one more, contact, £1,200. The standard small business site.
On WordPress
The same five pages on WordPress, £1,600. More to build, and more you can change yourself afterwards.
A shop
An online shop starts at £2,000: five content pages, up to twenty-five products, payments, shipping, tax and the policies.
Changes afterwards
£75 an hour, billed after they are done, or a monthly plan if there are enough of them to be worth fixing the price.
What is never extra
The sitemap, the redirects, the accessibility pass and the handover. They are part of the build, not a line added at the end.
Hosting and the certificate
A WordPress site on a managed host on my account, with the security certificate kept renewed, for £50 a month. The domain stays registered in your name.
Updated every month
WordPress, the theme and the plugins brought up to date, then the pages that matter checked by hand.
A backup every day
A fresh backup every day, and another before any update runs, so any change can be undone.
Changes when you need them
A reply within twelve working hours saying what it needs and how long it will take, before any of it is started. £75 an hour, or on a plan.
The note on the 1st
What was updated, what was changed and how many hours were used, next to the invoice.
Leaving, and what you take
A month's notice after the first three months, then a full backup and help moving it, free. The domain is already yours.
Sounds like you if
“The last person built it and then we never heard from them again.”
How a restaurant website is built: From hello to handover.
Step 1
12 hours max
I reply
Working hours, unless I am on holiday and have said so.
Step 2
Day 0
Scope call
30 minutes. The menu, how booking works today, and whether ordering is worth having.
Step 3
+2 days
Written scope
The pages, the booking route and the price. Fixed, before anything starts.
Step 4
Build
Menu first
The menu and the booking working on a phone before anything is styled around them.
Step 5
End
Handed over
Logins, a guide, and whoever changes the menu shown how to do it in a minute.
This is for you
Table booking and online ordering: A restaurant website is for you
if any of these sound familiar.
- A menu that is a PDF
- Bookings all going through a third party
- Hours that are wrong somewhere
- Photographs that are not of your food
It is not, if
- You want a site that looks like a magazine
- Nobody can keep the menu up to date
- You want the delivery apps replaced overnight
Not sure which side you are on? Say so on the call. If I am not the right person, you get the name of someone who is.
What a restaurant website costs
Every price on the page,
before you call.
You should not have to sit through a call to find out whether you can afford me.
Menu and booking questions: Questions I get every time.
The honest answers. If yours is not here, it is the first thing we cover.
Ask me yours01 Why not a PDF menu?
Because it is the commonest reason somebody gives up on a restaurant website. A PDF opens in a separate viewer, arrives at the wrong zoom on a phone, and cannot be read by search engines at all. The menu as text fixes all three.
02 Can people book a table?
Yes, connected to whatever system you use, or through a form that reaches the right person quickly. The test is whether somebody can do it in seconds on a phone while standing outside.
03 Should we take orders directly?
Only if the volume justifies it. Direct ordering saves the commission and adds admin; below a certain number of orders a week the apps are cheaper even at their rates. I will say which you are rather than sell you the feature.
04 What does restaurant website design cost?
The same as any build of that size, priced by platform on the website design page. Restaurants usually need a small site done well rather than a large one.
05 Are you a restaurant website design company?
One person rather than a company, which for a site this size is quicker and cheaper. You deal with whoever is building it, and changing the menu never goes through an account manager.
06 How do people find us?
Mostly locally, which is its own job: local SEO covers the profile, the listings and the reviews that decide who turns up on a map.
Usually goes with: Restaurant websites
and local SEO.
A restaurant is found on a map before it is found on a search, and that is the setup side of it.
See local SEOOr one of the other three
Menu still
a PDF?
Send me the menu and tell me how booking works today. Thirty minutes, no pitch, and you leave knowing what restaurant website design would change on a Friday night.
- Within 12 hoursA reply
- Within 2 working daysA written scope and a price
- OrThe name of someone who fits better