Restaurant Website Design: Turn Browsers Into Diners

Here's a number that should get every restaurant owner's attention: 77% of diners visit a restaurant's website before deciding to eat there. Not Yelp. Not Google Maps. Your actual website. And if what they find is a PDF menu that takes 30 seconds to load, outdated hours, or a "website under construction" page from 2019, they're going somewhere else.

The restaurant industry is a $1 trillion business in the US, but margins are razor-thin—typically 3-5% for full-service restaurants. Every empty table is money lost forever. Your website's job is simple: fill those tables.

Why Restaurant Websites Are Uniquely Challenging

Restaurant websites face a problem most businesses don't: you need to make people feel something. Not just informed—hungry. A plumber's website needs to build trust. A restaurant's website needs to build craving.

That means photography matters more here than almost any other industry. A dark, blurry photo of your signature dish does more harm than no photo at all. Great food photography—warm lighting, shallow depth of field, steam rising from a fresh plate—can literally trigger a physiological hunger response.

The other challenge is information architecture. Restaurant visitors typically want one of four things: the menu, the hours, the location, or a way to make a reservation. They want it instantly. Every extra click is a potential lost customer.

What to Look for in a Restaurant Website

Visual storytelling. Your website should feel like walking into your restaurant. The colors, the mood, the vibe—it should be an appetizer for the experience. Fine dining? Elegant and minimal. BBQ joint? Warm and rustic. Fast casual? Clean and energetic. The design sets expectations.

Menu accessibility. This is the #1 reason people visit restaurant websites, and it's where most restaurants fail hardest. Your menu should be HTML text on the page—not a PDF, not an image, not a link to a third-party site. HTML menus are mobile-friendly, searchable, accessible, and indexable by Google. A properly structured menu page can rank for "best [cuisine type] restaurant in [city]."

Reservation and ordering integration. Whether it's OpenTable, Resy, Toast, or a simple phone number, the path from "I want to eat here" to "I have a table" should be one click. For restaurants with delivery/takeout, online ordering integration (ChowNow, Square Online, direct ordering) is equally critical.

5 Must-Have Features for Restaurant Websites

1. HTML menu with prices. Ditch the PDF. An HTML menu loads instantly, works on every device, can be updated in minutes, and helps with SEO. Include dish descriptions that make mouths water—not just "Grilled Salmon $24" but "Wild-caught Atlantic salmon, herb-crusted, served over creamy risotto with seasonal vegetables."
2. Online reservation or ordering button. A prominent "Reserve a Table" or "Order Online" button should be visible without scrolling on every page. Use a contrasting color that pops against your design. This is your primary conversion action.
3. Hours and location with map. Sounds basic, but you'd be amazed how many restaurant websites make this hard to find. Display hours on the homepage, include holiday/seasonal changes, and embed a Google Map. Bonus: add parking information and public transit options.
4. High-quality food photography. Invest in a professional photo shoot. One session with a food photographer ($300-800) gives you images for your website, social media, and Google Business Profile for years. It's the highest-ROI marketing spend a restaurant can make.
5. Events and private dining page. If you host private events, happy hours, live music, or seasonal specials, dedicate a page to this. Event bookings can add 20-30% to your revenue, and many restaurants miss out simply because customers don't know the option exists.

The Mobile Experience Is Everything

Restaurant websites see some of the highest mobile traffic percentages of any industry—often 85-90%. People search for restaurants on their phone while walking down the street, sitting in traffic, or deciding on dinner plans from the couch.

Your mobile site needs to be perfect:

• Menu readable without zooming or horizontal scrolling
• Click-to-call phone number (for reservations)
• One-tap directions (links to Google/Apple Maps)
• Reservation button always visible
• Photos that load fast but still look appetizing

Test your site on at least three different phones. If anything feels clunky, fix it—because your competitors' sites won't be.

Restaurant SEO: Your Secret Weapon

Most restaurants focus on Yelp, Google Maps, and Instagram for discovery. Smart restaurants also optimize their own website for search. Here's why it matters:

When someone searches "Italian restaurant downtown [city]" or "best brunch near me," Google shows local results AND organic results. Your website can appear in both. A well-optimized restaurant website with location pages, a keyword-rich menu, and regular content updates (weekly specials, seasonal menus, chef's blog) captures traffic that platforms alone can't.

Schema markup is especially powerful for restaurants. Structured data tells Google your cuisine type, price range, hours, address, and menu items—helping you appear in rich results with ratings and direct links.

See a Restaurant Website That Converts

We built this template to do exactly what a restaurant website should: make people hungry and make it easy to act on it. Beautiful food photography presentation, HTML menu, integrated reservation, and a mobile experience that's actually enjoyable.

Third-Party Platforms vs. Your Own Site

DoorDash, UberEats, and Grubhub take 15-30% commission on every order. Yelp charges for enhanced listings. Google Ads cost per click. Your own website? Zero commission, zero per-click fees, and you own the customer relationship.

This doesn't mean you should ditch the platforms—they provide valuable discovery. But every customer you can convert to ordering directly through your website is dramatically more profitable. Some restaurants have saved $50,000+ annually by shifting just 20% of their delivery orders to direct online ordering through their own site.