Restaurant Website Essentials: What to Include (And What to Skip)
70% of restaurant website traffic comes from mobile. Most restaurant websites are designed for desktop, load in 8 seconds, and require pinching and zooming to read the menu. You're losing customers before they even see what you serve. Here's what your website actually needs — and everything you can cut.
The 5 Pages Every Restaurant Website Needs
What people do: 60% of visitors land on your home page and decide within 5 seconds whether to continue or leave. They need: what kind of food, where you are, and when you're open. If they can't find this in 5 seconds, they leave.
Common mistake: A giant slideshow with 8 images that takes 10 seconds to load. One strong hero image loads faster and communicates more clearly.
Critical: The menu must be text-based HTML, not a PDF. PDFs are terrible on mobile (pinch-to-zoom, slow loading, not indexed by Google), can't be read by screen readers, and look unprofessional. If you must offer a PDF, make it a downloadable option alongside the HTML version.
Update frequency: Every time prices or items change. An outdated menu with wrong prices causes customer frustration at the table. Set a calendar reminder to review monthly.
Purpose: This page builds trust and connection. People want to know who's behind the food. A restaurant with a compelling story charges more and gets more loyalty than one without. Keep it concise — no one reads a 2,000-word autobiography.
Critical: Make the phone number and address tappable/clickable on mobile. A phone number that requires copy-pasting loses 50% of potential callers. Use standard HTML link markup:
tel: for phone, mailto: for email.Purpose: Every visitor who reaches this page is ready to spend money. Make it frictionless. The fewer clicks between "I want to eat there" and "I booked a table," the more reservations you get. If your reservation system requires more than 3 fields (name, date, party size), it's too complicated.
What to Skip
- Auto-play music. Nothing makes someone close a tab faster than unexpected audio. Especially if they're browsing at work, in bed, or on public transit. Never, ever auto-play anything.
- Flash intros or animated splash pages. These died in 2010. If your website has a "Click to Enter" page, redesign immediately.
- PDF-only menus. As discussed above. PDFs are the single biggest UX failure on restaurant websites. Use HTML text.
- Stock photos. A stock photo of a generic pasta dish tells people nothing about YOUR food. Use real photos or no photos. Even a phone photo of your actual dish is better than a stock photo from a photo library.
- Excessive pages. You don't need a separate page for "Gallery," "Press," "Chef's Bio," "Events," "Gift Cards," "Catering," and "Private Dining." Consolidate. Most visitors check 2-3 pages maximum. Keep it simple.
- Social media feeds embedded on the home page. They slow down load time dramatically and add visual clutter. Link to your social profiles instead.
- Background videos. They look impressive on desktop but destroy mobile load times. If 70% of your traffic is mobile (it is), a background video is a liability, not an asset.
Mobile Optimization
70% of restaurant website traffic is mobile. If your site doesn't work on a phone, 70% of potential customers have a bad experience. Here's the checklist:
- Load time under 3 seconds. Test at Google PageSpeed Insights (free). If your site takes longer than 3 seconds, compress images, remove background videos, and consider a faster hosting provider. Every additional second of load time increases bounce rate by 32%.
- Menu is readable without zooming. Text should be at least 16px. No tiny fonts. No horizontal scrolling. The menu should render as a clean, scrollable list on a phone screen.
- Buttons are thumb-friendly. "Reserve Now" and "Order Online" buttons should be at least 48px tall and easy to tap without accidentally hitting something else. Place them at the top of the page and again at the bottom.
- Phone number is tappable. When someone taps your phone number, it should open their phone app ready to call. Use the
tel:link format. - Address opens in Maps. When someone taps your address, it should open Google Maps or Apple Maps with directions ready. Link the address to a Google Maps URL.
- No horizontal scrolling. If any element on your page requires horizontal scrolling on mobile, fix it. Tables, images, and embedded content are the usual culprits.
Online Ordering Integration
| Platform | Best For | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Toast | Full-service restaurants already using Toast POS. Integrated ordering, delivery, and marketing. All-in-one. | $0 commission on direct orders. POS subscription varies. |
| Square Online | Small restaurants and cafes. Simple setup, integrates with Square POS. Good free tier. | Free plan available. Paid plans from $29/month. |
| ChowNow | Restaurants that want zero commissions on online orders. Flat monthly fee instead of per-order commission. | $149-399/month. No per-order commission. |
| BentoBox | Restaurants that want a beautiful website with built-in ordering. Design-focused. | $99-199/month. No commissions. |
| Third-party apps (DoorDash, Uber Eats) | Discovery and reach. But 15-30% commissions eat your margins. Use for new customer acquisition, then convert them to direct ordering. | 15-30% commission per order. |
The smart strategy: Use DoorDash/Uber Eats for discovery (new customers find you there), but include a flyer in every delivery order: "Order direct at [your website] and save 15%." Convert delivery app customers to direct customers over time. The delivery apps acquire the customer; your website retains them.
SEO Basics for Restaurants
Local Keywords
Your website needs to include the words people actually search. Those words are: "[cuisine type] restaurant [city/neighborhood]," "[city] [food type] near me," and "best [cuisine] in [city]." Include these naturally in your page titles, headings, and body text. Your home page title should be: "[Restaurant Name] | [Cuisine Type] Restaurant in [City/Neighborhood]."
Schema Markup
Add Restaurant schema markup to your site. This tells Google exactly what your restaurant is, where it's located, what cuisine you serve, and when you're open. Google uses this data to power the knowledge panel that appears when someone searches your restaurant name. Most website builders (Squarespace, Wix, BentoBox) add basic schema automatically, but verify it at Google's Rich Results Test tool.
Google Indexing
Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console (free). This ensures Google crawls and indexes all your pages. Check monthly that your key pages (Home, Menu, Contact) are indexed. If your menu is a PDF, Google can't index the content — another reason to use HTML text.
Photo Requirements
Minimum photos needed for a restaurant website:
- 1 hero image (home page header): your best dish or dining room. Landscape format, at least 1920px wide.
- 3-5 food photos (menu page): your signature dishes. These should be your best shots.
- 2 interior photos (home or about page): dining room and bar/counter area.
- 1 exterior photo (contact page): the front of the building with signage visible.
- 1 team/chef photo (about page): the people behind the food.
Image optimization: Compress every image before uploading. Use TinyPNG or Squoosh (both free). A 5MB photo should be compressed to under 200KB. Large, uncompressed images are the #1 cause of slow restaurant websites.
Speed and Hosting
WordPress powers 40% of the web but it's often overkill for restaurant websites. A WordPress site with 12 plugins loads slower than a simple Squarespace or BentoBox site. Here's the breakdown:
- Squarespace ($16-27/month): Best balance of design, speed, and ease of use. Beautiful templates, mobile-optimized, no plugins to manage. Perfect for restaurants that want a professional site without hiring a developer.
- BentoBox ($99-199/month): Built specifically for restaurants. Includes online ordering, event management, and CRM. Premium price but purpose-built for the restaurant industry.
- Wix ($17-32/month): Easy drag-and-drop builder. Restaurant-specific templates. Good for getting online fast.
- WordPress ($5-30/month hosting + themes/plugins): Most flexible but requires the most maintenance. Security updates, plugin conflicts, and hosting management. Only use WordPress if you have someone technical maintaining it.
Whichever you choose, test your site speed at PageSpeed Insights after launching. Aim for a score of 80+ on mobile. Below 60 means your site is actively losing customers.
Related Reading
- Small Business SEO Checklist
- Website Copywriting Templates
- Restaurant Instagram Content Ideas: 40 Posts That Fill Tables
- Food Photography Tips with Your Phone: Settings, Angles, and Editing
Your website is your digital storefront. A complete brand system makes sure it tells the same story as your Instagram, your Google listing, and your dining room. We build that system for restaurants.