Almost half of restaurant websites can’t take an order.

What we found

46% of restaurant websites showed no way to order online. A hungry guest who lands there has to call, or go back to an app. In New Orleans it was 60%; in New York City, 50%.

7.4% send online orders only to delivery apps. Every one of those orders pays the app a commission, and the guest belongs to the app. See what delivery apps really charge, or work out your own cost with the delivery-app fee calculator.

Toast is the most common ordering link, on 25% of websites. Restaurants that already have their own ordering are the most likely to own the guest relationship.

Only 30% let guests book a table online. The rest rely on phone calls, which go unanswered when the room is busy. Read how to stop losing calls during the rush.

What owners can do this week

1. Add an order button to your homepage that goes to your own ordering, not only an app.
2. Give regulars a reason to order direct: a small pickup offer or rewards.
3. Let guests book online, and make sure someone (or something) answers the phone.

How we did it

We started from official open data for food establishments (city health-inspection and licence records) plus OpenStreetMap, removed chains, and visited each restaurant’s own website homepage in November 2026, following robots.txt and one request per second. We recorded the ordering, booking and website tools linked or built into the homepage. We counted only websites we could read: 1,425 out of the 37,821 independent restaurants in the four cities’ data.

Limits: this is not a random sample (we checked websites listed in open data, prioritising independent, sit-down restaurants); we read the homepage only, so ordering hidden deeper in a site or behind a script may be missed; and tools change often. Treat the numbers as a snapshot. No individual restaurant is named.