Tech 6 min readUpdated Nov 11, 2026
Restaurant website must-haves: the checklist owners actually need
What every restaurant website needs: a text menu, hours, order and book buttons, fast mobile pages, real photos and accessibility. Free checklist inside.
On this page
A restaurant website must have five things before anything else: a menu written as text with prices, correct hours, your address and a tap-to-call number, clear buttons to order and book, and pages that load fast on a phone. Real food photos and basic accessibility come right after.
Most guests visit your site with one task in mind: check the menu, see if you’re open, order, or book. This checklist helps them do that in seconds.
The 5 non-negotiables
If you fix nothing else, fix these.
1. A menu written as text, with prices
Many guests visit just to check the menu. Put it on the page as real text: dish names, short descriptions, prices, and labels for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and spicy.
Avoid a PDF or a photo of your printed menu as the main menu. They load slowly on phones, force pinching and zooming, often go out of date, and are hard for screen readers to read. Keep a PDF only as an extra for catering or printing.
2. Hours you can trust
Show today’s hours near the top, and the full week below. Update holiday hours before the holiday, not on the day.
Your hours, address and phone must match your Google Business Profile exactly. Google lets restaurants show hours, dining and delivery options, menus, ordering and reservations on their profile. When the site and Google disagree, guests stop trusting both.
3. Address, map and a tap-to-call number
Put the full address with a map link, parking notes and a phone number that dials when tapped on a phone. If you have more than one location, give each its own page.
4. Order and book buttons on the first screen
On a phone, the first screen should show your name, cuisine, today’s hours and two or three clear buttons: Order online, Book a table, Call. Don’t hide them behind a menu icon or under a big slideshow.
Many guests are happy to order direct. NCR Voyix’s 2025 Customer Experience Report found 58% of US consumers use a restaurant’s own app or website for delivery orders. Make it easy for them. For more, see how to get more online orders.
5. Fast on a phone
Google’s web.dev guidance sets three “good” targets, called Core Web Vitals:
| Measure | What it means | Good target |
|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | Main content shows up | 2.5 seconds or less |
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | Page responds when tapped | 200 milliseconds or less |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | Page doesn’t jump around | 0.1 or less |
Speed loses guests. In 2016, Google reported that 53% of mobile visitors leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. The usual culprits on restaurant sites are huge photos, autoplay videos, pop-ups and too many add-on scripts.
How to check: open your site on your own phone, on mobile data, away from Wi-Fi. If you’re waiting, so are your guests.
The full restaurant website checklist
Use this to score your site. Each item is a yes or no.
Basics
- Restaurant name, cuisine and neighborhood clear in the first screen
- Today’s hours visible; holiday hours updated
- Full address, map link, parking or transit notes
- Tap-to-call phone number
- Hours, address and phone match your Google profile
Menu
- Menu as text on the page, not only a PDF or image
- Prices shown and up to date
- Short descriptions for dishes people may not know
- Diet and allergen labels where you can stand behind them
- Separate sections for lunch, dinner, drinks, kids or specials if you have them
Order, book and contact
- Order online button on the first screen
- Book a table button on the first screen (if you take bookings)
- Catering or private dining page with a simple request form
- Email or text sign-up with a clear reason to join
Look and trust
- Real photos of your food, room and team, not stock photos
- A short “about us” with who you are and what you’re known for
- Recent reviews or a link to your Google reviews
- Secure site (https) and a privacy page if you collect guest details
Phone and speed
- Loads fast on mobile data
- Text readable without zooming
- Buttons big enough to tap with a thumb
- No pop-up covering the screen on arrival
Photos that help, not hurt
Photos sell food, but heavy photos slow the page. A few rules:
- Use your own dishes. Stock photos of food you don’t serve set the wrong expectation.
- Shoot in daylight, close up, on a plain surface.
- Start with best sellers. Ten great photos beat fifty dark ones.
- Resize before uploading. A phone photo straight from the camera can be several megabytes. Most website builders can compress images; turn that on.
- Show the room too. Guests booking a birthday dinner want to see the space.
Accessibility: part of the basics
The US Department of Justice’s guidance from March 2022 says the ADA requires businesses open to the public, and it names restaurants, to give people with disabilities equal access, and that this covers what they offer on the web. It points to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as helpful guidance. This is not legal advice; read the official guidance and ask a lawyer if you have questions.
The DOJ lists common barriers. Here they are as a quick check for a restaurant site:
| Barrier named by DOJ | Restaurant example | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Poor color contrast | Light gray text on a photo | Dark text on a plain background |
| Color as the only cue | ”Spicy dishes in red” | Add a word or icon, not just color |
| Missing alt text | Dish photos with no description | Describe each photo in a few words |
| No video captions | Chef video with speech | Add captions |
| Forms without labels | Reservation form with blank boxes | Label every field and explain errors |
| Mouse-only navigation | Menu tabs that need a mouse | Make sure everything works with a keyboard |
A text menu, which you need anyway, fixes one of the biggest problems on restaurant sites.
Common mistakes to avoid
- Old prices. A guest who sees one price online and pays another feels tricked.
- Dead links. Test every order and booking button once a month.
- Music that autoplays. Guests often browse at work or in bed.
- Different hours in different places. Website, Google, delivery apps and the door sign should all match.
- A site nobody can update. If changing a price takes a week and a developer, it won’t get done.
How to review your site in 15 minutes
- Open your site on your phone using mobile data.
- Time how long until you see the menu or order button.
- Find today’s hours. Count the taps.
- Place a test order and a test booking.
- Compare hours, address and phone with your Google profile.
- Turn your phone’s text size up and see if the page still works.
- Fix the biggest problem first. Repeat next month.
If your current site fails several items and is hard to change, it may be time to switch. See our comparison of the best restaurant website builders. Collecting reviews also helps guests trust you; read how to get more Google reviews.
How WhatsTable helps
WhatsTable builds your restaurant website with you. Online ordering goes straight into your Clover POS, reservations take a few taps, and the Maya AI phone host answers calls your team can’t pick up. Guests get booking and order emails, and you can close a single date to bookings in a tap.
WhatsTable costs $0 a month plus 5% to 10% of sales through WhatsTable. It works with Clover POS only. See restaurant websites.
Sources
- web.dev: Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS thresholds)
- Marketing Dive: Google says 53% of mobile visitors leave sites slower than 3 seconds (2016)
- ADA.gov: Guidance on web accessibility and the ADA (March 2022)
- Google Business Profile for restaurants (hours, menus, ordering, reservations)
- Restaurant Dive: most customers prefer ordering delivery direct (NCR Voyix 2025 report)