A restaurant website that looks as good as your food

Pages every restaurant site should have

A diner opening your site wants to know what is on offer, whether you are open tonight and how to reserve a seat. Build the core around those questions. The menu page should be text, split into starters, mains, desserts and drinks, with a date or season shown so people know it is current.

Add a booking page, a private dining or events page if you host groups, and a “Find us” page with a map, parking notes and the nearest station or bus stop. An about page with the story of the kitchen and the people running it gives a place its character, and only needs a few paragraphs.

Photograph the food in daylight if you can, and include the staff at work. Diners warm to a place where they can see the people. Compress images so pages load quickly on mobile data, since many people look at menus while out and about.

• Menu
• Book a table
• Private dining
• Gift vouchers
• Our story
• Find us

What diners look for before they choose

Most people decide in under a minute, so the answers must be easy to spot. Opening hours, last orders, price range and cuisine belong in the first screen. Allergens and dietary options should be listed clearly on each dish; in the UK, businesses have to give allergen information, and the same care applies elsewhere.

Photos should show the real room and the real plates. A group booking a birthday wants to see how tables are arranged. Mention whether you take walk-ins, how long a table is held, and whether children and dogs are welcome. Small facts like these prevent awkward phone calls and no-shows.

Make booking effortless. A reservation button should be visible without scrolling, and should say plainly how large a party you can take online. For bigger groups, offer a phone number or WhatsApp, and tell people the deposit policy before they commit.

How hungry people search

Restaurant searches combine cuisine, place and occasion: “Italian restaurant in Cardiff for a birthday”, “brunch with outdoor seating”, “halal steakhouse open late”. Reflect those combinations in the wording of your pages. If you serve brunch, give it its own heading and times, rather than burying it in a general menu.

Assistants are asked things like “where can I eat gluten-free near the station?” A page that states your dietary options and your location in the same paragraph is far likelier to be suggested than one that only shows pictures. Keep the text current when menus change, since stale information is quickly noticed.

Think about the quieter nights too. A page for a midweek offer, a lunch menu or a family Sunday gives people a reason to come when you have empty tables. Name the days and times, and keep the price visible so the offer is easy to repeat to friends.

Menus, specials and seasonal changes

The menu is the page most visitors open, so treat it as a living document. Avoid a scanned PDF, which is slow on a phone and unreadable by search engines. Write each dish as a line of text with a short description and a price.

If your specials change daily, keep a separate “Today” block at the top of the page, and leave the main menu for dishes that stay. For seasonal menus, such as Christmas or Ramadan set menus, create a dedicated page well ahead of the date, because people begin searching weeks early. Remove or mark expired pages afterwards.

If you deliver or offer collection, spell out the radius, minimum order and typical waiting time. Customers who understand the rules order more happily, and your staff spend less time answering the same questions by phone during a busy service.