A restaurant website has one job above all others: to make someone who has never visited you feel hungry, excited, and confident enough to make a booking. Everything else — the design, the photography, the copy, the booking system — is in service of that single goal. Get it right and your tables fill. Get it wrong and even the best food in your city goes undiscovered.
We've built websites for restaurants, cafes, bars and hospitality businesses across the UK. Here's what actually works — and what most restaurant websites get badly wrong.
What a Restaurant Website Must Have
Proper Food Photography
Nothing sells a restaurant like great food photos. Smartphone photos under poor lighting will actively put people off. Professional food photography is one of the best investments a restaurant can make — it pays for itself quickly in bookings.
An Accessible Menu
Your menu should be readable on a phone without pinching and zooming. A PDF menu is not acceptable in 2026. The menu should be HTML text — searchable, readable on any device, and indexable by Google.
Online Booking
People book restaurants at 11pm on their phones. If you require them to call during business hours, you're losing bookings. An integrated online booking system — whether that's ResDiary, OpenTable, or a simple form — is essential.
Location & Parking Info
Where are you? Where can people park? Is there a bus stop nearby? Customers need this information before they commit to a booking. Make it prominent, with a Google Map embed and specific directions.
Current Opening Hours
Outdated opening hours are one of the most common — and most damaging — mistakes on restaurant websites. People check your hours before making a journey. If your website says you're open when you're not, they won't come back.
Reviews and Awards
Your TripAdvisor rating, Google reviews, and any press coverage or awards should be featured prominently. Social proof is the most powerful conversion tool on any hospitality website.
The Biggest Mistakes Restaurant Websites Make
PDF Menus
We cannot stress this enough. A PDF menu is inaccessible on mobile, impossible for Google to read, and cannot be updated easily. It tells customers you built your website in 2010 and haven't thought about it since. Build your menu in HTML. Update it when it changes. This alone will improve your search rankings and your customer experience simultaneously.
No Online Booking
The hospitality industry has largely moved to online booking, but a surprising number of independent restaurants still require customers to call. Every missed booking because your phone was engaged or you were in a busy service is revenue lost forever. A basic online booking form costs very little to implement and works while you sleep.
Slow Loading on Mobile
Restaurant websites are image-heavy by nature — and unoptimised images are the number one cause of slow loading. A page that takes six seconds to load on a 4G connection will lose most of its visitors before it finishes. Compress your images. Use modern image formats. Test your mobile loading speed regularly.
Generic Design
Your website should feel like your restaurant. The colours, the typography, the imagery — all of it should reflect the experience of being in your space. A fine dining restaurant and a casual brunch spot should look completely different online, just as they do in person. Generic template designs send a signal that you don't care about the details — which is exactly the wrong message for a hospitality business.
SEO for Restaurants — Getting Found on Google
When someone searches "Italian restaurant Manchester" or "best brunch Salford", you want to be at the top of those results. Local restaurant SEO follows the same principles as other local businesses, with a few specific considerations:
- Your Google Business Profile is critical — it controls your appearance in Google Maps and the local pack
- Menu content should be on your website in HTML, not in a PDF, so Google can read it
- Cuisine-specific keywords ("authentic Thai restaurant Leeds", "vegetarian cafe Birmingham") can drive highly targeted traffic
- Event content — Christmas menus, Valentine's Day offers, private dining — creates seasonal SEO opportunities
- TripAdvisor and Google reviews directly influence your local rankings
One of the most underused SEO opportunities for restaurants is seasonal content. A dedicated page for your Christmas party packages, Easter menu or Mother's Day brunch — published six to eight weeks before the event — can rank well for specific searches and drive direct bookings without paying commission to third-party platforms.
Should You Use OpenTable, ResDiary or Just a Simple Form?
Third-party booking platforms like OpenTable and ResDiary are excellent tools — they handle the logistics, send reminders, and manage your covers automatically. But they charge per cover, and they also keep the customer relationship. For high-volume restaurants, the software cost is usually worth it. For smaller independents, a simple booking form that goes straight to your email may be all you need.
At Arlo Studio, we build restaurant websites that are designed to be as beautiful as your food and as functional as your front of house. We're Manchester-based and work with hospitality businesses across the UK. If you'd like to discuss your website, we're always happy to meet in person.
Let's Build Something Beautiful for Your Restaurant
We design websites for restaurants, cafes, bars and hospitality businesses across the UK.
Get in Touch