The most important feature for your website is that it’s “Mobile Friendly”. Pre-Covid-19, 77% of a restaurant’s website visits were done from a mobile phone.

The best restaurant websites deliver what the visitor is looking for quickly, easily, and obviously. Today’s consumers are visiting your website to answer a question or make a discovery.

Unlock your phone and give yourself the user experience:

• Display: Does it adjust to the smaller screen, or do you have to zoom and slide to navigate?
• Hours & Contact Info: Are your hours and/or contact information easy to find? Sanitation Message: Where on your site will you communicate your sanitation protocols?
• Menu*: How easy is it to find your menu and how well does it present itself?

*Menu [IMPORTANT]: An itemized menu page is the way to go. Use (and keep current) your website’s template menu option or 3rd Party ordering platform to create individual menu item listings.

If your menu is a scanned pdf or an image you’ve lost over half of new visitors and you’re not ADA compliant (screen readers can’t transcribe a picture).

Your menu is the link you’ll want plugged into Google, social media pages, and offered to review sites like Yelp or Trip Advisor.

• Ordering: Is it easy to understand how to order from you?
• Reservations: If you have an online reservation service is this easily accessible and discoverable too?

Your website doesn’t need to be large or sophisticated, there are many build-your-own options available at reasonable prices such as Wix, SquareSpace, Weebly, and more. You may already have access to such a resource through your POS system.

Having picture galleries, social media plug-ins, your story, etc. are still terrific elements, just be sure they don’t create distractions or barriers between your visitors and the information they’re seeking.

Online Ordering

If you don’t yet have an online ordering platform or 3rd Party plug in, NOW is the time to prioritize. Covid-19 has skewed the data (as pandemics do) but pre Covid data shows that 60% of consumers order delivery or takeout at least once a week, spend at least $50, and 70% state a strong preference towards ordering directly from a restaurant instead of through a 3rd party.

There are a lot of good options out there, choose a service that integrates with your POS. You can narrow your search by looking into your POS’s website to see what your options are. If you find they don’t exist or are too limited… that’s alarming; may time to look for a new POS.

Harbor Foodservice’s Restaurant Solutions Group is a free resource that can help you navigate these nebulous topics, and in some cases help with your website development and/or modification of your existing site to better format your priorities.

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