Restaurants & Cafés industry

For restaurants and cafés a website usually does one job: get people through the door. Menu, location, opening hours and reservation — the information people want is almost always those four. A design that makes visitors hunt for them is not doing its job, however attractive it looks.

Publishing the menu as a real page rather than a PDF improves both mobile readability and search visibility. Consistency between social media and the site matters too: people usually see you on Instagram first and check the site afterwards, and they should not meet two different brands.

A large share of searches in this sector go to the map rather than the site. Keeping the Google Business Profile current — opening hours, recent photos, the right category — often brings more visitors than the website does. The two also have to agree; a customer who reads different hours may arrive to find the door closed.

Menu freshness is its own issue. When prices and seasonal dishes change, the menu has to be editable from the admin panel; in a setup where every change means going back to a designer, the menu inevitably falls behind. If a QR menu is used, feeding both from a single source prevents the table menu and the website drifting apart.

Is putting the menu up as a PDF a problem?

Yes, for two reasons. A PDF needs pinching and zooming on a phone and is hard to read, and the text inside it does not count as page content for a search engine, so you do not appear when someone searches for a particular dish. Keeping the menu inside the page itself, in an editable form, solves both at once.

Which comes first, a Google Business Profile or a website?

A nearby customer usually finds you on the map, so getting the profile right comes first: current hours, the correct location, decent photographs. The site is where the profile is confirmed — the menu, the story and the contact details live there. The two are not alternatives but two steps in order.

Should we build our own online ordering?

If most orders come through platforms, building your own saves the commission but leaves you to generate the order volume yourself. As a middle path, a flow that goes straight from the site into WhatsApp is quick to set up and enough for most small operations.

Beyond the menu, what needs printing?

Table cards, takeaway packaging and its labels, and the sign visible from outside. Packaging stands apart among these: it is the only printed piece that leaves the premises. When the customer opens the meal at home the brand appears again, and that encounter does a different job from the menu — it reminds. The sign, meanwhile, works on the decision before anyone comes in, so legibility comes before styling.