People aren’t willing to walk blindly into a restaurant anymore. They check online reviews, visit the restaurant’s website, and review the menu before going in. According to Upserve, more than 90 percent of diners go online to research restaurants before they eat — more than any other industry or business type.
A website for your restaurant is essential for reaching today’s customers. Even if you’re clueless about creating a website, you can use restaurant website templates to achieve a professional design that makes a strong first impression on your audience.
On your website, you’ll want to make sure to include a few key pages:
Menu
Some customers want to see the prices on your menu to decide whether it fits their budget. A lot of customers are also interested in seeing whether the menu can accommodate their dietary preferences or restrictions. People seeking vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, or other particular dining options will appreciate having quick access to an updated menu.
You can choose to present menus as either a PDF or a plain-text page, but plain-text will cause fewer compatibility issues with different types of devices and browsers.
Reservations
If your restaurant offers reservations, dedicate a page to providing more information about reservation options. If you use a third-party service like OpenTable or Resy, you can add a plugin to your reservations page to help customers make reservations on your site.
If you have special directions for booking large parties or other useful information about reservations — such as a seating policy requiring the entire party to be present — this page is a good place to provide these details.
Events
Many restaurants accommodate events involving large groups, such as wedding receptions, engagement dinners, or business dinners. If you have space to accommodate these events, you may want to offer a dedicated website page that describes your space, including seating capacity and whom to contact for more information.
This page can also highlight special events hosted at the restaurant, including ticketed dinners and special one-time occasions like Mother’s Day brunch or New Year’s Eve dinner.
Visit (hours and location)
Want people to find your restaurant? Make sure the location information is available on your website. Your Visit page should include updated hours of service as well as your restaurant address(es). Consider embedding a map on this page to further help potential diners find your restaurant.
The website building tools and features on WordPress.com make it easy to create a custom business website from scratch. With a number of restaurant website templates to choose from, you can find a design that suits your restaurant’s style and add the necessary text, images, and color schemes to offer your online audience a beautiful website that drives new diners to your restaurant.
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