Websites for restaurants: menu, hours, and seats filled
Restaurant website visitors want exactly three things, usually on a phone, often in a parking lot: the menu, tonight's hours, and whether they can get a table. Every design decision serves those three — which is why the classic sins (PDF menus, autoplay music, last year's hours) cost real covers every night.
Key facts
- The menu must be on the page, not a PDF — PDFs are unreadable on phones and invisible to search engines.
- Wrong hours are worse than no website: a diner who drives to a closed door never comes back.
- Reservations online fill Tuesdays: the browser deciding at 4 pm books the 7 pm table if the site lets them.
The menu is the website
Most restaurant-site traffic is menu traffic. Put it on the page as text — sections, dishes, honest descriptions, prices — so it loads instantly, reads cleanly on a phone, and ranks when someone searches "butter chicken [your city]." Update it when the kitchen changes; with chat editing that's "remove the salmon special, add braised short rib at $34," done from the pass between services. Photos of your five best-selling dishes, near the top, sell the visit before a word is read.
Hours, location, and the parking-lot test
Design for the person standing outside deciding whether to walk in: today's hours visible without scrolling, address that opens their map app, phone number that dials on tap. Holiday hours deserve a one-line banner the week they change — the single cheapest goodwill move in hospitality. If parking is tricky, say where; if you're cash-only or fully licensed, say so. Every pre-answered question is a smoother seating.
Reservations and the honest scope note
Webbys' built-in booking handles table reservations cleanly — party size as the service, time slots as your seatings — so the 4 pm browser locks in the 7 pm table. For full online ordering and delivery, the practical play is linking out to your ordering platform rather than pretending a website replaces it; the site's job is being the front door that makes people want in.
Family-run Italian trattoria in London, Ontario — warm, rustic, candle-lit feel. Full dinner menu on the page: fresh pasta, wood-fired pizza, weekend brunch. Hours prominent, reservations bookable online for parties up to 8, photos of our five signature dishes, link to our delivery partners.