How to Build a Website for Your Restaurant: What to Include

Your homepage is often the first impression a potential guest will have of your restaurant. It should instantly reflect the atmosphere, cuisine, and character of your business. If you specialize in handcrafted Italian dishes served in a rustic setting, that should be immediately evident. If you run a trendy sushi bar with modern vibes, that too should come through within seconds of landing on your site.

With Edifice, you can choose from visually rich templates designed specifically for hospitality and food service. Full-screen hero images or looping background videos can showcase your food, space, or ambiance right away. Pair this with a concise, welcoming headline or tagline, something that tells visitors what you're all about, and place a clear call-to-action front and center, such as “Book a Table” or “View Our Menu.” This simple yet strategic structure can guide users directly to the next step in their journey with you.

The menu is the heart of any restaurant website. It’s the page most visitors are searching for, so it needs to be clean, easy to read, and mobile-friendly. Nothing frustrates a hungry customer more than having to zoom in and out on a poorly formatted PDF or squint at a hard-to-read image file.

Edifice offers a dynamic menu builder that allows you to categorize your offerings (like breakfast, lunch, dinner, or happy hour) and input items, descriptions, and prices with ease. Updating it is just as simple, whether you’re adding seasonal dishes or making price changes, you can do it in minutes. You can even highlight featured items or chef’s specials visually to guide customer attention. This flexibility ensures your menu always reflects your latest offerings and impresses customers at first glance.

Whether you're managing dine-in reservations, takeout orders, or both, your website should make it effortless for customers to connect with you. Online reservations are no longer a luxury, but they’re expected. The same goes for online ordering, especially if you're competing with fast-casual or delivery-first brands.

Edifice gives you multiple ways to handle this. You can integrate directly with popular reservation platforms like OpenTable or Resy, or use Edifice’s built-in booking form that lets users select dates and times based on your availability. For takeout or delivery, Edifice supports integrations with major ordering systems such as Toast, Uber Eats, or DoorDash, while also offering native ecommerce functionality for those who want to keep everything in-house.

The goal is to minimize friction. Whether a guest is planning a birthday dinner or placing a last-minute lunch order, the process should be fast, clear, and mobile-optimized.

Too many restaurants hide the most important details behind layers of navigation. Your hours of operation, address, phone number, and directions should be easy to find from any page on your site. Ideally, they’re placed in the header or footer so they remain visible at all times.

With Edifice, you can easily configure these elements into your layout. Interactive maps powered by Google Maps can be embedded to show your exact location, while mobile users will benefit from clickable phone numbers and “get directions” buttons. You can also customize alerts or banners for temporary changes, like holiday hours or special closures, so that guests are never caught off guard.

Clear communication here leads to more visits and fewer missed connections.

In an age where diners are more intentional about where they spend their money, telling your story adds a layer of emotional connection that builds loyalty. An About page lets you share who you are, why you started your restaurant, and what values or inspirations drive your culinary vision.

For example, you might talk about how your family’s recipes inspired your menu, or how your commitment to sourcing local ingredients shapes your dishes. This page is also a great place to introduce your chef, show your team in action, or highlight any community involvement.

Edifice provides customizable layouts for About pages that include rich text sections, image galleries, and quote blocks, which is perfect for testimonials, reviews, or media features. Use this space to invite guests into your world, beyond just the food.

Visual content is essential for a restaurant. Beautiful, high-resolution photos of your dishes, drinks, dining area, and staff create a compelling picture of the experience you offer. A gallery page lets you curate these visuals in a way that’s organized and immersive.

Edifice allows you to upload images into a responsive photo gallery that looks great on any device. You can also create sliders or carousels to highlight different themes—like brunch photos, special events, or behind-the-scenes kitchen shots. If you’ve invested in a 360° virtual tour or drone footage of your venue, Edifice supports video embeds that give potential guests a real sense of the space before they visit.

In an industry where presentation matters, these visual elements go a long way in building trust and anticipation.

Word of mouth has always been one of the most powerful marketing tools for restaurants, and online reviews are the modern version of that. Adding testimonials to your site reinforces credibility and gives new visitors social proof that you’re worth a visit.

Edifice makes it simple to highlight customer reviews, whether you pull them from Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, or social media. You can display them as rotating quote blocks, static sidebars, or even full sections dedicated to feedback. Including real names and photos (with permission) adds authenticity and increases trust.

This section can also include any press coverage you’ve received, awards, or recognitions. If someone else says you’re doing a great job, let your future guests know.

Restaurants thrive on change—new menus, special events, happy hours, and promotions keep customers engaged and coming back. That’s why your website needs to be dynamic and easy to update.

With Edifice, you can create dedicated sections or pages for your upcoming events and specials. You can schedule content changes in advance, display countdown timers for limited-time offers, or add RSVP forms for ticketed events. Whether it’s a live jazz night, a Thanksgiving prix-fixe menu, or a wine tasting, your site should reflect what’s happening in real-time.

Keeping this section current shows visitors that your business is active, creative, and worth revisiting.

More than half of all restaurant-related searches happen on a mobile device. That means your website must be optimized for smartphones—no exceptions. A slow, clunky, or unresponsive site leads to missed opportunities and lost reservations.

Thankfully, all Edifice templates are designed to be fully mobile responsive. Images resize appropriately, menus reformat for readability, and call-to-action buttons remain accessible. You don’t need to manage multiple versions of your site, Edifice handles the responsiveness automatically.

From browsing your gallery to booking a table or ordering online, your guests should have a flawless experience whether they’re on a laptop, phone, or tablet.

Showing up in local search results is vital. If someone types “best Thai food near me,” you want your restaurant to appear and ideally, stand out. That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play.

Edifice provides robust SEO tools that allow you to edit meta titles, descriptions, URLs, and image alt-tags directly from the dashboard. You can also connect your Google Business Profile, Google Analytics, and Search Console in just a few steps. This means better visibility in search results, more data about how users find your site, and actionable insights to help you improve.

By following Edifice’s built-in SEO recommendations, your website can work behind the scenes to attract new diners—24/7.

Running a restaurant is demanding, and your website should help lighten the load—not add to it. With Edifice, you don’t need a technical background or a marketing degree to build a stunning, functional website that delights your guests and grows your business.

From customizable templates and mobile optimization to SEO tools and seamless integrations, Edifice offers everything you need to bring your restaurant online—and keep it thriving.

Hungry to get started?