Restaurant website checklist: the first ten seconds

Run the ten-second test before you read on

Use your own phone, not the office computer, and turn the Wi-Fi off so you see what a guest on the sidewalk sees. Search your restaurant's name, tap through to the site from the result, and start counting. Note what you can find without scrolling, what takes one scroll and what you never find at all.

Write the answers down as you go, with the second each one appeared. Then hand the phone to someone who has never eaten at your restaurant and watch them do the same thing without help. You know where everything is; a stranger does not, and the stranger is the one deciding where to eat tonight. Where they hesitate is where the work is.

Guests tend to look for the same things, in roughly this order:

• Is it open now, and until when?
• What is on the menu, and what does it cost?
• Can I book a table, and for when?
• Where exactly is it, and how do I get there?
• If I am planning a party: which room, how many people, and how do I ask?
• If I am buying a present: can I get a gift card tonight?

Hours: the first thing a phone user checks

Hours decide whether the rest of the visit happens. Put today's hours near the top of the homepage as text, with the full week one tap away, and keep each service separate if they differ: lunch, brunch, dinner, the kitchen's last order. A guest at 2:30 wants to know whether lunch is still going, not when you open on Thursday.

Holidays are where sites fail. Change the hours on the site the week before each holiday, and change them on your Google listing the same day, so the two never disagree. If you close for a private event or a repair, say so on the first screen with a date, not in a social post the guest will not see.

The menu: words and prices, not a file

For many restaurants the menu is the page guests came for. It passes the test when every dish is written on the page with a short description and a price, each menu and section has a heading, and the link to it can be found by a thumb on the first screen. A PDF fails twice: it downloads instead of opening, and its type is sized for paper.

Search engines and AI assistants read the same page a guest does, so a menu that works on a phone usually works for them too. The menu SEO guide goes dish by dish, and menus built as text keep the page right the same day a dish changes.

Dietary marks belong beside each dish too: vegetarian, gluten-free, contains nuts. A guest with an allergy scans for them first, and a mark next to the dish answers faster than a note at the bottom of the page or a question to a busy server.

The book button, and what it opens

A guest ready to book is the most valuable visitor your site gets. The button belongs on the first screen, and it should open a time picker for a date and party size, on your own page, so the guest keeps your menu and rooms in view and their name and number stay with you. A button that opens a contact form, an email address or a phone number turns a booking into a chore.

Test the whole flow: pick a date, a time and a party size, enter your details and read the confirmation that arrives. Then look at the cost behind it, because some systems charge a fee for every cover. The reservation system checklist lists what to ask, and a reservation system with one flat price charges no fee per cover. If large parties go through an inquiry instead, say so beside the button.

An address that opens a map

The address should be written as text, not only drawn inside a map picture, and tapping it should open the guest's map app with directions to your door. Add a Directions button on the homepage and on each location's page if you have more than one. The phone number should open the dialer on a tap, with no copying needed.

Then answer the questions a guest asks on the way: where to park, which entrance to use, whether the entrance and restrooms are step-free, whether you take walk-ins. A guest with a stroller or a wheelchair looks for that before anything else, and a guest who cannot find the door calls during your busiest hour to ask.

Rooms and inquiry pages for the planner

A planner is a different visitor with a different first ten seconds. They are looking for a room that fits a number. If you rent space, each room needs a page of its own with its name, how many it seats and holds standing, real photos set for a party, what comes with it and a form. A single events page with a phone number makes them do the work, and they compare four places in one evening.

The form should ask for what you need to answer well: the date, the headcount, the room and a budget. Then answer fast, nights and weekends included. Private event software gives each room its page and form and keeps every inquiry in one place with its date, headcount and room.

Gift cards and orders: money that arrives at any hour

Some guests open your site to spend money without visiting: a gift card the night before a birthday, a pickup order on the way home. Ask two questions of each: does the guest stay on your site to pay, and does the money land in your own account without a cut taken out? A gift card page that only says ask at the bar loses the late shopper to a card from somewhere else.

On a Tableify site, gift cards sell on your own site and each one is paid straight to your account with no platform fee. Online ordering carries no commission on the plans that include it. Put both links where a phone user finds them: in the menu bar and in the footer.

The links that point in: your listing and profiles

Many guests never type your address. They arrive from your Google listing, which has fields for a menu link, a reservation link and a food ordering link, or from the link in your social profiles. Each of those links should open the exact page it promises, not the homepage. The Google Maps guide walks through the listing field by field, and a Smart Site gives your Instagram profile a page of its own.

Links break quietly when a page moves or a menu is renamed, so tap every one from your phone once a month. Then decide who fixes what, and how fast. If the honest answer is nobody, a site built and kept current for you may cost less than it looks, and the guide to website costs shows how to compare.