Restaurant websites: menu, hours and reservations

Put your menu on your website as real text with prices, keep your hours the same on your site and on Google, and put your ordering and reservation links where a thumb can reach them. Those are the things people open a restaurant website to check, often on a phone, often while deciding where to eat in the next hour.

Photos, your story and the rest matter too, but only after those three work.

The menu: real text, not a PDF

A PDF menu made sense when the menu came from the printer. On a phone, a PDF means downloading a file, pinching to zoom, and scrolling sideways to find a price. The PDF on the site is also often an old one, because updating it means getting a new file from whoever designed it.

A text menu on the page fixes that:

• It reads at phone size without zooming.
• You or your manager can change a price in a minute.
• People can search the page for a dish or an ingredient.
• Google can read it. Google says it "may transcribe menu data from your business website" so that it appears on your Business Profile, in its help page about the menu editor. A current text menu gives it something accurate to work from.

If you also want a printable version, offer the PDF as a second link under the text menu, not instead of it.

How to lay out the menu

• Sections in the order people order: starters, mains, sides, desserts, drinks. Or by meal, if breakfast, lunch and dinner are different menus.
• Each item: the name, a short plain description of what's in it, and the price.
• Options on the same line, like "add chicken" or "half portion", with their prices.
• Dietary marks only if you're sure they're accurate, plus a line asking guests to tell staff about allergies.
• A note saying when the menu was last updated. It tells people the prices are current.

The menu editor on Google is a separate place to keep up. Google says changes there can take 24 to 48 hours to show on Maps and Search, so when prices change, update your website first and Google right after.

Show your prices

A menu without prices leaves people guessing what dinner will cost, and some will guess high and go somewhere else. Show them.

If an item really changes from day to day, write "market price" for that item only. For specials, a short "This week" section on the site that you can edit yourself works better than a social media post people have to scroll to find.

Hours that match everywhere

Wrong hours cost you twice: the guest who drives over to a locked door, and the review they write afterwards.

• Put your hours on the site as text, ideally on every page.
• Separate kitchen hours from bar hours if they differ, and say if you close between lunch and dinner.
• Use the same hours on your Google Business Profile.
• Update both before every holiday. Google's special hours setting lets you set holiday hours, or a closure of up to six days in a row, without changing your regular schedule. For takeout or delivery hours that differ from your dining room, Google points to its "More hours" setting instead. If you're closing for seven days or more, Google says to mark the business as temporarily closed.

Ordering and reservation links

Whatever you use for online orders or reservations, the website's job is to get people there in one tap.

• Plain, large buttons near the top: "Order pickup", "Reserve a table", "Call us". On a phone, keep them in a bar that stays on screen.
• Link to your own page on the service, not to the service's home page, where people have to search for you again.
• If you only take reservations by phone, say so, and say when someone picks up.
• Give large parties and private events their own short form: date, number of guests, what kind of event. Those requests are worth more than a regular table and shouldn't get lost in a general inbox.

The same links on Google

Your Google Business Profile has a place for these links too. Google's help page on local business links explains that you can add links for your menu, reservations and food orders, up to 10 links per category, and mark one as your preferred link. It also notes that some links come from third-party providers or from Google's own data, and explains how to remove a provider's link.

Check your profile every couple of months for links you didn't add. Then make sure the buttons on your site and the links on Google send people to the same places.

The rest of the page

• Address and a map, plus parking and the entrance if they aren't obvious from the street.
• Real photos of your dishes and your dining room, taken in good light. No stock food.
• Your phone number as a tap-to-call link.
• Gift cards, catering and events, each with its own short section, if you offer them.
• Accessibility notes, like a step-free entrance or an accessible restroom, if they apply.
• No autoplay music or video. People open restaurant sites in line, in the car and at their desk.

For what we put on a restaurant site, see websites for restaurants. If you're wondering whether your Google listing could do all of this on its own, read Google Business Profile vs. a website.

A ten-minute check

Open your site on your phone and try these:

• Find tonight's closing time.
• Read the price of your most popular dish without zooming.
• Get to the reservation or ordering page in one tap.
• Compare the hours with your Google profile, line by line.
• Check that the menu online matches the one on the table today.

If any of these is slow or wrong for you, it's slow or wrong for every guest who tries it.

See your menu on a real site

We build the first version of your restaurant's website free, in 2 days, with your menu as real text, your hours and your ordering or reservation links. You click around it, then decide. If it isn't for you, you owe nothing. Get your free preview.