TL;DR: A restaurant website needs five things: a menu in real text with prices, your hours, a phone number people can tap, your address, and one clear button to order or book. WebZum builds that kind of site in about five minutes for $19/mo or $34/mo month to month, and you can see yours free before you pay. When we checked 52 independent restaurant sites on October 31, 2026, 18 of them (35%) only had their menu as a PDF or photo, and 21 had no tap-to-call link on the homepage. The bigger cost question is ordering: delivery apps charge 15–30% per order, while first-party ordering links from DoorDash, Toast and others are commission-free.
Disclosure: WebZum publishes this blog and makes an AI website builder. Prices for other options come from each company’s own pages, linked inline, and numbers a company says about itself are labeled as its claims. The 52-site check below is our own, and our method is described in the section about it.
Verified October 31, 2026. Prices are US list prices and can change.
What does a restaurant website need?
Most people visit a restaurant site to answer one question: what’s on the menu, are you open, how do I order, or where do I park. A good site answers each in one tap on a phone and on a laptop. Here’s what that takes:
- A menu in text, with prices. Not only a PDF or a photo. Text is easier to read on a phone, easier to keep current, and easy for Google to read.
- Hours on the page, including holiday changes, and the same hours as your Google listing.
- A phone number people can tap, near the top.
- Your address and a map link, plus parking if it’s tricky.
- One clear “Order online” or “Reserve” button, if you take orders or bookings, pointing to the system you already use.
- Real photos of your food and room.
Google treats the menu as a big deal too. Its restaurant guide for Business Profiles walks through adding a menu link, building a menu with sections, dishes and prices, and lists “Menu clicks” among the numbers it reports back to you (Google Business Profile Help).
What did we find on 52 real restaurant websites?
To see what independent restaurants actually do, we checked their sites ourselves on October 31, 2026.
How we picked them: we pulled restaurants and cafés with a website listed in OpenStreetMap for Columbus, Spokane, Tucson, Boise and Albuquerque. That gave 114 places. We dropped chains, campus dining, non-restaurants, duplicates and four places with no site of their own (just a Facebook, Linktree or ordering page), which left 77. We loaded each homepage in a desktop browser, then followed its menu, order and reservation links. The places weren’t picked at random; the list leans toward places OpenStreetMap ranks as better known. Twelve sites wouldn’t load from our test machine, so we left those out too.
The first surprise: 8 of the 65 sites that loaded now show a parked page, a for-sale notice or unrelated spam. Some of those restaurants may have closed or moved, but anyone tapping the “Website” link on their old listings lands on junk. That left 52 working restaurant sites:
| What we checked | Restaurants (of 52) |
|---|---|
| Menu in real text with prices, on their own site | 23 (44%) |
| Menu only inside an online-ordering page | 8 |
| Menu only as a PDF or photos | 18 (35%) |
| Hours written on the homepage | 36 (69%) |
| Tap-to-call link on the homepage | 31 (60%) |
| An “order online” link of any kind | 35 (67%) |
| …that goes to the restaurant’s own ordering page (its POS or ordering provider) | 34 |
| …that goes to a delivery app like Grubhub or Uber Eats | 3 |
| A reservations link | 10 (19%) |
| Restaurant-type structured data for Google | 13 (25%) |
The rest of the menus were two text menus without prices and one we couldn’t open. The menu pages that were photos were often dinner menus shot as images or slides; one site’s “Menu” button just reloaded the homepage. On the ordering side, the pattern was clear: almost every restaurant that offers online ordering sends people to its own ordering page (Toast, Square, Clover, Olo, SpotOn, DoorDash’s commission-free ordering and others), not to a delivery app. The fee gap below is probably why.
Should my restaurant menu be a PDF?
A PDF menu isn’t invisible. Google can index PDFs and images (Google Search Central). The problems are practical. A PDF means pinching and zooming on a phone, every price change means re-exporting and re-uploading a file, and old PDFs stay floating around. A photo of a printed menu is worse: the dish names and prices aren’t text at all.
A text menu with sections, dishes and prices fixes all three. If you love your printed design, keep the PDF as a “download” link under the text menu, not instead of it. Squarespace, for example, includes a menu block on all its plans (Squarespace), and on WebZum the menu is a list of dishes you change by typing, like “change the margherita to $16.”
Do you need online ordering on a restaurant website?
If a lot of your sales go out the door, probably yes. The National Restaurant Association’s 2026 industry report, citing Technomic, puts off-premises orders at 35.4% of full-service restaurant traffic in 2025 (up from 12.1% in 2019) and 89.9% of limited-service traffic (National Restaurant Association). In the same report’s consumer survey, 56% of delivery customers said they’d rather order directly through the restaurant, and 70% of consumers said they’d order and pay through a restaurant’s website if it offered that.
That doesn’t mean your website has to process the orders itself. It means the “Order online” button should go to an ordering page you control, and that page doesn’t have to be expensive:
- DoorDash Online Ordering: DoorDash says orders through it are commission-free, with payment processing and customers covering delivery. Its Marketplace plans charge 15%, 25% or 30% per delivery order, and 6% for pickup (DoorDash pricing, Storefront).
- Uber Eats Webshop: 2.5% plus $0.29 per order. Its Marketplace plans charge 20%, 25% or 30% for delivery, and 7–10% for pickup (Uber Eats pricing).
- Toast online ordering: “No commissions. No hidden fees,” per Toast, with a flat delivery fee per order. Toast doesn’t publish an online-ordering price; it’s part of a quote, and the POS starts at $0/mo for its Starter Kit (Toast, Toast pricing).
Then tell Google. A Business Profile lets you accept orders on your profile, add your own ordering link and set it as your preferred link for pickup and delivery. Delivery apps that say they have a relationship with you can show up there automatically, and you can ask them to take their link down; Google gives them 5 business days (Google Business Profile Help). Our guide to getting listed on Google covers the setup.
How much does a restaurant website cost?
The website itself is the cheap part. What changes the math is per-order fees. Here’s a worked example: a restaurant doing 100 online orders a month at $30 each, so $3,000 in orders. Card processing is extra on almost every row and isn’t included.
| Option | What it is | Published monthly price | Fees on $3,000 of orders | Monthly cost in this example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WebZum | Restaurant website; links to your ordering | $19 Basic, $34 with your own domain | $0 from WebZum; your ordering provider’s fees apply | $19–$34 plus your ordering tool |
| Squarespace | DIY website builder | $25–$139 paid monthly (Squarespace) | Depends on the ordering app you connect | $25 and up |
| Owner.com | Website, ordering, app and marketing in one | Flex $249 + 5% per order, or Flat $499 (Owner) | Flex: $150; guests also pay a 5% order fee on both plans | $399 (Flex) or $499 (Flat) |
| Popmenu | Restaurant website and marketing | From $179 paid monthly (Popmenu) | Ordering is an add-on, plus $1 per online order: $100 | $279 plus the add-on |
| Toast | POS with online ordering | From $0; POS from $69 (Toast) | No commission on online orders, per Toast | Quote |
| DoorDash Online Ordering | Commission-free ordering page | $0 (DoorDash) | $0 commission | $0 plus processing |
| Uber Eats Webshop | Ordering page | Not listed as a monthly fee (Uber Eats) | 2.5% + $0.29 per order: $104 | $104 |
| DoorDash or Uber Eats delivery apps | Marketplace listing | $0 | 15–30% for delivery: $450–$900 | $450–$900 |
Two fair points about that table. The delivery apps bring you customers who’d never find your site, which is what the commission pays for, so many restaurants use both: the apps for new people, their own ordering link for regulars. And the all-in-one platforms do more than a website, which is what the next section is about. If you want a broader look at what any small business site costs, see our small business website cost breakdown.
Does a restaurant website need reservations?
Only if you take them. Just 10 of the 52 sites we checked had a reservations link, which makes sense for counter-service spots and cafés. If you do take bookings, link to the system you already run: Squarespace includes an OpenTable block on every plan (Squarespace), and Google can show a Reserve button on your profile (Google Business Profile Help). Dedicated systems cost real money: Resy’s plans, now shown on Tock’s pricing page, run $289/mo and $459/mo, with 3% or 2% fees on prepaid bookings (Tock / Resy).
What helps Google show your restaurant?
Your Business Profile does most of the work: correct hours, holiday hours, menu, photos and your preferred ordering link. On the website side, Google recommends marking your business up with the most specific type, “for example, Restaurant,” and using the menu property to point to your menu page (Google Search Central). Only 13 of the 52 sites we checked used a restaurant type, and 4 listed a menu link that way. It’s not magic, but it’s a cheap way to make sure Google reads your site correctly. Before a holiday, our holiday website checklist covers what to update.
When should you choose an all-in-one restaurant platform instead?
Choose Owner, Popmenu or Toast’s online tools instead if online orders are a big share of your sales and you want ordering, a branded app, loyalty and email marketing in one place, run by one company. Owner says many restaurants launch within a week on its month-to-month plans (Owner). Each company makes its own claims about results. DoorDash, for example, says branded websites “convert at 4x the industry average” (DoorDash). Treat those as their numbers, not independent ones. We compared Owner in detail in our Owner.com alternative post.
A website builder makes more sense if most of your business is walk-in and phone, if you already have ordering through your POS or DoorDash, or if $250–$500 a month is more than the site earns you. For a sense of how this plays out for a takeout spot, see our pizza restaurant website and food truck website posts.
What does a WebZum restaurant website include?
You answer a few questions about your restaurant, and in about five minutes you get a finished multi-page site, including a menu page, with your town in the copy and a tap-to-call button in the header. You can paste your Google Maps link to pull in your best reviews word for word, or bring photos, posts and hours over from your Facebook Page.
We ran the same check on two of our demo sites, El Primo Tacos (a fictional taco shop) and Golden Rye (a bakery café). Both have their menu as real text with prices, hours written on the page, a tap-to-call link and restaurant or bakery structured data. Both started with three dishes on the menu, so plan to paste in your full menu after the build. Neither has an order or reservation button yet, because neither demo takes orders online.
Everything after that is typing in the editor chat: “change the margherita to $16,” “we’re closed Thanksgiving Day,” or “add an Order Online button that goes to our Toast page.” You can add a language menu if you serve guests in Spanish or other languages, and a chat assistant on the site answers questions like your hours and points people to call. WebZum doesn’t take orders or reservations itself; it links to the ordering or booking system you use, and takes no cut of your orders. More examples are on our restaurant website builder page.
FAQ
What should a restaurant website include?
A menu in text with prices, your hours (including holidays), a tap-to-call phone number near the top, your address with a map link, real photos, and one clear button to order or reserve if you offer that. In our check of 52 independent restaurant sites, those were the parts most often missing or hard to find on a phone.
How much does a restaurant website cost?
A site from a builder runs about $19–$139 a month; WebZum is $19/mo, or $34/mo with your own domain, month to month. Restaurant platforms with ordering built in cost more: Owner is $249 plus 5% per order or $499 flat, and Popmenu starts at $179 plus add-ons. Per-order fees often matter more than the monthly price.
Is a PDF menu bad for a restaurant website?
It’s not invisible to Google, but it’s harder to read on a phone and easy to let go stale. Put the menu in text with prices and keep the PDF as an optional download.
Can I use DoorDash or Toast ordering on my own restaurant website?
Yes. Both offer first-party ordering pages that you link from an “Order online” button, and both say those orders are commission-free (card processing and delivery costs still apply). In our check, 34 of the 35 restaurants with online ordering linked to their own ordering page, not just a delivery app.
Do I need a restaurant website if I’m already on Google and the delivery apps?
It helps. Your website is the one place you control the menu, the prices and where the “Order” button goes, and it’s what the Website and Menu links on your Google listing can point to. Without one, the delivery apps are often the first place people order, at 15–30% per delivery order.
See your restaurant’s site before you pay
Answer a few questions and look at a finished site for your restaurant in about five minutes: your menu page, your hours, your call button at the top. If it’s right, publish for $19/mo, or $34/mo with your own domain, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If it isn’t, you’ve spent five minutes.