Does a Restaurant Need Its Own Website in the UK?
Yes. If you run a hospitality business, a website is far less optional than it is for other local services. Diners expect to find your menu, hours, and booking options online before they ever step foot in your venue. This article covers exactly what your restaurant website needs to include and what it realistically costs to build.
Do customers check restaurant websites before visiting?
Yes, and the numbers are significant. Research shows that around 77% of diners look at a restaurant’s website before deciding whether to visit, even if they first found the venue somewhere else. For restaurants without a website, that’s a meaningful proportion of interested customers who check, find nothing, and choose somewhere else.
The mobile factor makes this more pressing. Nearly eight in ten restaurant website visitors browse on a phone, usually while they are already out and looking for somewhere to eat. A website that is slow or hard to read on mobile loses those customers in the moment they are most likely to convert.
What does a restaurant website need to include?
Five things: your menu, your location and opening hours, your booking option, photos, and your contact details.
The menu is the most important. Diners want to know what you serve and roughly what it costs before they commit to visiting. A menu that is a scanned PDF, hard to read on mobile, or missing prices will cost you bookings.
Location and hours need to be on the homepage, not buried on a contact page. Someone standing around the corner at 7pm should be able to open your website and confirm you’re open in under five seconds.
Online booking matters more than most restaurant owners expect. Around 70% of UK restaurant bookings now come through online reservations, and more than half of London diners actively avoid restaurants without a digital booking option. A simple OpenTable integration or basic reservation form is enough to start.
Photos of real food and your interior build trust before the customer arrives. You don’t need a professional photographer, but you do need photos that look like the actual restaurant.
Can Google Maps or Instagram replace a restaurant website?
No, and trying to use them as a replacement creates specific problems.
Google Maps is essential but limited. Your listing has no space for a full menu, no booking integration, and Google controls what visitors see. Instagram shows what you choose, but it doesn’t answer the questions a diner needs before booking: are you open, what does it cost, can I get a table. Your followers are already fans. Your website converts people who have never heard of you.
For a broader look at why local service businesses need their own web presence regardless of how active they are on directories or social media, see Does a Tradesperson Need a Website in the UK?
Do I need online ordering on my restaurant website?
It depends on your model. If you offer takeaway or delivery, yes. Online ordering is expected now, and not having it means losing orders to competitors who do. Integrations with Deliveroo, Uber Eats, or a standalone ordering tool are enough.
If you’re a sit-down only restaurant, online ordering is not essential. Focus on the booking system first.
How much does a restaurant website cost?
If you build it yourself on Squarespace or Wix, expect to pay from £10 to £16 a month plus a domain (around £10 to £20 a year). Most restaurant owners find that setting up a good-looking site takes a full weekend, often more.
Done-for-you restaurant websites typically range from £500 to £2,000 through an independent freelancer. If you want it built properly without the hassle of learning a website builder yourself, a professional agency service like Duport is often the most cost-effective route.
For the full cost breakdown across all your options, we’ve compared the real numbers in How Much Does a Small Business Website Cost in the UK?.
Before your restaurant website goes live, make sure it meets UK legal requirements. Every website needs a privacy policy, a cookie notice, and your business information correctly displayed. Most website builders don’t check this for you.
Run your site through our free compliance checker to see what’s there and what’s missing.
Get your restaurant website sorted
Duport’s website build starts from £360. Mention this article when you get in touch and we’ll honour the £144 rate. We build it for you: 30 minutes of your time, live in 72 hours.
For those also registering a limited company, the full bundle is £244 upfront. That covers company formation, your website, email, and compliance tools together.
FAQs
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Do I need a website if my restaurant is on Deliveroo or Uber Eats?
Yes. Delivery platforms handle orders but they don’t build your brand, they don’t rank in Google for your restaurant name, and they take a commission on every order. Your own website does all three.
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What is the most important thing to put on a restaurant website?
Your menu with prices. Diners decide where to eat based on what you serve and what it costs. Everything else on the website supports that decision, but the menu is what closes it.
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Can I use a free website builder for my restaurant?
Yes, but the free tiers of most website builders show third-party adverts, limit your customisation, and make it harder to connect your own domain name. A paid plan (from around £10 a month) avoids those issues.
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How do I take online bookings on my restaurant website?
The simplest option is to integrate a booking widget from a platform like OpenTable or to add a basic reservation form. Both can be added to most website builders without any technical knowledge.
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Is my website legally compliant in the UK?
Not automatically. UK law requires your website to include a privacy policy, a cookie notice, clear terms and conditions, and specific business information (such as your registered company name and number if you’re a limited company). Most website builders include template pages for some of these, but they don’t check whether your content is accurate or complete. Use our free website compliance checker to see what your site has and what it’s missing.
