Restaurant websites have a unique problem: the people who build them care about aesthetics, and the people who use them care about information. The result is beautiful websites that hide the menu behind three clicks and do not show hours on the homepage.
What Restaurant Customers Actually Want
Research consistently shows the same thing: restaurant website visitors want three things, in this order:
1. The menu (77% of visitors) 2. Hours and location (62% of visitors) 3. Online ordering or reservations (38% of visitors)
Everything else — the chef's story, the sourcing philosophy, the architectural details of the renovation — is secondary. Not unimportant, but secondary. Put it on the About page. Put the menu, hours, and reservation button on the homepage.
The Biggest Mistakes
PDF menus. 23% of restaurant websites still serve their menu as a downloadable PDF. On mobile, this means the customer has to download a file, open it in a separate app, and pinch-to-zoom to read tiny text. Most customers give up and check Yelp instead. Your menu should be HTML text on a webpage.
No mobile optimization. 72% of restaurant searches happen on mobile. If your site does not work perfectly on a phone, you are losing the majority of your potential diners.
Missing or wrong hours. Nothing frustrates a customer more than driving to a restaurant that their website said was open, only to find it closed. Keep hours updated, especially for holidays and special events.
No online ordering integration. 60% of consumers order food online at least once a week. If you offer takeout or delivery and your website does not make it easy to order, you are sending those customers to DoorDash where you pay 30% commission.
Slow loading. Restaurant websites are often bloated with high-resolution images that take 8+ seconds to load. Compress images. Optimize delivery. A fast-loading site with smaller images beats a slow-loading site with beautiful photography.
What Ted Builds for Restaurants
- Homepage with menu, hours, and location above the fold
- Full HTML menu (not a PDF) organized by category
- Online ordering integration (or link to preferred platform)
- Reservation button (OpenTable, Resy, or direct booking)
- Photo gallery that loads fast on mobile
- Google Maps embed with directions
- Click-to-call for phone orders and reservations
- Local SEO optimized for "[cuisine] restaurant [city]" searches
- Social media integration showing latest posts
- Special events and seasonal menu updates
The goal: when someone is hungry and searches for your type of food in your city, they find your site, see your menu, and make a reservation or place an order. Every other feature is secondary to that core conversion path.
Ready to see your new website?
Ted scores your site and rebuilds it overnight. $500.