How To Design A Restaurant Website

How To Design A Restaurant Website

The need to marry design and culinary cuisine can be frustrating, but it also happens to be essential for many businesses.

Yet, how do you begin to go about deciding how food should ‘look,’ in terms of color, theme, and palette? What does it mean to visualize the small of ingredients in digital form?

The bottom line is that designing a restaurant website is not always as simple as it appears.

How To Design A Restaurant Website Image source: Sofi Smith

Fortunately, there are lots of ways to make it simpler, particularly when it comes to putting together responsive and user-friendly platforms which encourage the appetite and get prospective diners prepared for a treat.

These handy tips and tricks will teach you how to get the most out of your restaurant website.

Find Your Audience

Find Your Audience Image source: C-Knightz Art

The first step is to identify your target audience.

For example, if you own a restaurant or snack bar in close proximity to a college, you are likely to get a lot of younger people visiting.

If there are lots of corporate offices close to your business, your food might be most popular with the individuals which work there and look for tasty treats during their lunch break.

To get to know your audience, take a close look at the people who are around you. You should pay close attention to their age, level of expenditure, preferences, and dining styles.

Once you know a little about this target audience, you can start to create your website based on this information – for instance, younger people are drawn to bright colors and clean lines.

Stick to the Basics

Stick to the Basics Image source: Tomas Gajar

The instinct is often to go overboard and fill a restaurant website with all kinds of unnecessary information. However, this is usually a sure fire way to put visitors off.

For most, the aim is to enjoy an uncomplicated dining experience – with great customer service, but over the top details. Just let your website design reflect this.

The essential components are a top quality homepage or landing page, an easy to understand About Us page, a comprehensive Menu page, and a Contact Us page.

Once you have been operating for some time, it could be a good idea to add a simple Review page.

Use High-Quality Images

Use High-Quality Images Image source: Vitali Zakharoff

In many ways, this is one of the most basic pieces of advice to give and still one of the hardest to follow.

The reality is that taking professional looking shots of food is difficult. There are very few amateurs who can get it right, so the best recommendation is to hire the expert services of a professional food photographer.

If you do not have the cash to hire outside help, always remember to use pale colored crockery and use plenty of light.

The best method is to photograph small amounts of food, rather than heaps of a meal, and to pick recipes which contain a lot of bright colors. Look for vegetables like red peppers, carrots, tomatoes, etc.

Incorporate the Menu

Incorporate the Menu
Image source: Michał Roszyk

Whilst it might not have been such a big deal to leave the menu of a restaurant website ten years ago, these days, a lot of potential diners are put off if they cannot skim-read a menu before they arrive at an eatery.

There are a number of reasons for this, including a greater concern about allergies and intolerances.

If you really want to impress when designing a restaurant website, avoid the temptation to simply throw together a scrappy PDF version of the menu. Design a fully optimized web-based menu which showcases the best of what you have to offer.

And do not forget to keep it up to date too, because the last thing that you want is to have to disappoint excited diners.

Represent Your Unique Vibe

Represent Your Unique Vibe Image source: Elliot

It is not just the culinary treats which make a great restaurant, so put some thought into the best ways to inject a little bit of your unique vibe into the restaurant website.

The truth is that diners can pick up a great steak almost anywhere, but they come to you because you can offer more than that. They want to chow down somewhere with a super atmosphere.

To make sure that prospective diners know what you are all about, add lots of high-quality photographs of the interior of the restaurant – when it is filled with happy diners, of course!

You would be surprised how much information a person can get from a great restaurant website design with high-quality images – how to dress, what kind of food to expect. and all this from just a few interior snaps!

Give a Clear Location

Give a Clear Location
Image source: Jamie McElwain

These days, it is standard for restaurant websites to have some kind of mapping resource incorporated into their design.

These resources are primarily designed for those with smartphones – so almost everybody. They allow users to simply click on a mapped location and instantly draw up an address or a step by step route guide.

In other words, you want to be the restaurant which gives its diners not too much information, but the right information. If they know how to reach you and how long it will take, they are much more likely to select your restaurant as a dining prospect.

Use Online Resources

Use Online Resources Image source: Akhil

As with the mapping facilities mentioned above, there are lots of different online resources which can help your diners enjoy a streamlined experience.

For example, it is now very popular for restaurant websites to incorporate online booking forms so that diners can book a table in seconds and without needing to pick up the phone.

If relevant, direct those looking for package deals, for parties and other events, to a special page or area of the website which handles unique or large scale bookings.

It does not matter which online resources you choose to use, so long as you make sure that they are easily accessible and simple to use.

Make the Most of Color

Make the Most of Color Image source: Ash Schweitzer

The most influential tools which you can take advantage of as food designers are texture and color. In fact, the best culinary designers always utilize lots of rich and textured heavy themes, designs, and backgrounds throughout their online platforms.

If possible, incorporate different colors and textures into your photographs and website themes.

Add Simple Contact Forms

Add Simple Contact Forms
Image source: Onur Kiyak

A good restaurant design is one which features a simple and easy to navigate contact or feedback form.

Fortunately, this is very easy to achieve. All you need to do is make sure that there is an empty space in which to write personal comments, rather than just a box for a phone number and a name.

Always Be Friendly!

The best way to get people talking about your restaurant is to start sharing details about it on social media platforms. You need to set up profile pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, so that you can interact with the people who might want to try your food. If you express a genuine interest in your customers, they will reward it with loyal custom.

Never Forget the Essentials

Never Forget the Essentials
Image source: Frankie Kao

With so much to consider when designing a great restaurant website, it is easy to let some of the more obvious things slip. The following essentials must be covered within the bounds of your website design or diners will be discouraged from visiting.

  • What dishes do you offer? Menu and photos
  • How much do your dishes cost? Menu
  • What is your restaurant like? Photos
  • Where is your restaurant? Map
  • Is it possible to book online? Booking form

The Bottom Line

Whilst it is certainly true that designing for a restaurant can be a tough task, it does not have to be a nightmare chore if the right planning and development are put in place.

The key to success is simply to know which aspects of the design you cannot afford to miss out and then to prioritize them accordingly.

There is a tendency, these days, to create restaurant websites which are far too complicated. This is because the essential characteristics have not been identified first.

You should try to keep usability and user-friendly aspects in mind at all times, with a secondary focus on geo-location tools and online booking forms, as these are the innovations which are changing the industry.

Credit for featured image: Sebastian Faurholdt

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