Restaurant and Café Websites: Menus, Reservations and Google Maps

Someone visiting a restaurant's website is usually hungry and in a hurry. They're on their phone, they often came from Google Maps, and they have three questions: what do you serve, how much is it, how do I get there. If the site answers those in ten seconds, it's doing its job. Everything else is decoration.

A restaurant site's three jobs

First, show the menu. Second, take a table booking or an order. Third, make it easy to come in: address, opening hours, parking, directions.

A mistake we see often is a homepage that opens with a big promo video and a slogan like “The home of flavour for years”. The video loads slowly on a phone, and the slogan answers nobody's question. Put the menu button on the first screen, with hours and address right below.

A menu people can read on the page, not a PDF

A PDF menu is easy for the owner: the file you send to the printer goes on the site and you're done. For the visitor it's often a poor experience. On a phone, the PDF either downloads or opens in a separate viewer. The text is tiny, so they pinch and scroll sideways. A large file loads slowly on mobile data, and meanwhile they may switch to another restaurant's page.

A menu written as text on the page has a few practical advantages:

• It reflows to fit the phone screen, so nobody has to zoom.
• Google can read the dishes. Someone searching “lamb tandır in Kadıköy” can find you because of it.
• When prices change, you don't need a new design and a new PDF; you edit the number in the admin panel.
• Allergens, vegetarian options or spice levels are easy to show with small labels.

If you're in a tourist area (Sultanahmet, Kaleiçi in Antalya, Bodrum's bazaar), add an English version of the menu. A foreign visitor rarely bothers reading a PDF through a translation app; they'll walk into the place across the street. With a text menu, adding a second language is easy: dish names and prices stay the same, only the descriptions get translated.

List your prices and keep them current. A menu without prices reads as “probably expensive”, especially when prices change quickly. A price on the site that doesn't match the price in the restaurant can cause trouble with customers and lead to complaints, so update the site the same day prices change, and add a “last updated” date to the menu too.

Reservations and delivery

We see three approaches to reservations. The simplest is a phone and WhatsApp button, which is often enough for a small café. The second is a simple form on the site: party size, date, time, phone number. The form must reach you as an email or WhatsApp notification; a form that lands in an inbox nobody checks is worse than no form. The third is a booking platform. That makes sense for a place that fills up in the evenings and needs to manage table layouts, but check the platform's commission or subscription model.

For delivery you may not need a separate system. Links to the platforms you already use, such as Yemeksepeti, Getir or Trendyol Go, next to the menu are enough. Taking orders directly on your own site saves platform commission, but brings new work: payments, couriers, legal texts. Businesses that start with platforms and move to their own system once order volume grows usually have an easier time.

Photos and atmosphere

Close-up food photos taken on a phone in daylight often work better than stock photography. Visitors want to see the plate that will actually arrive. A stock “happy family eating dinner” shot can be recognised at a glance and lower trust.

Add a few shots of the interior too: the space between tables, the garden, a high chair if you have one. Someone coming with a large group may decide from the photos instead of calling to ask.

Resize images before uploading them. A photo of several MB on the homepage can delay the menu button.

Google Maps and reviews

Many restaurant customers see you on the map first. The opening hours, phone number and website link on your Google Business Profile must match your site exactly. Point the menu link field in the profile to the menu page on your site. We explained step by step how to create and verify the profile in a separate post.

Reviews matter here. A profile with recent reviews, where the owner replies, earns more trust than a quiet profile with the same rating. We also covered how to get more reviews within the rules; a small QR card left on the table works in many places.

Updating holiday hours on both the profile and the site is often forgotten. A customer who turns up on a day you're closed may write a review and never come back.

If your restaurant works alongside a hotel or guesthouse, the accommodation side has different needs, which we discussed in the post on hotel websites. For a small café or restaurant, a 4 to 5 page site with a proper menu and a link to the map is usually enough. Adapting one of Kodyva's ready-made sites to your brand is often a fast route at that scale.