A menu in text a phone can read, hours that are right, an address that opens the map, a reservation or ordering link, and your own photographs — from $999, with the copy written for you and the site in your name. There is a complete demonstration you can open before you spend anything.
A restaurant website is read on a phone, by someone on a sidewalk or a couch, who wants three answers in under a minute: what is on the menu, whether you are open now, and how to get a table or an order. Most restaurant sites fail those three in the same ways — a menu that is a photograph of a PDF, hours that were true last spring, and a phone number that has to be typed by hand. We design and build restaurant websites in Grand Rapids at a fixed price from $999, write the copy ourselves, and put the site in your name.
Every dish and price as real text on the page, so it renders on any phone, can be searched, and can be read by Google and by a screen reader. Not a PDF, and not a photograph of the printed menu.
In text, on the first screen, with the seasonal and holiday changes stated, and in the page's structured data so the hours Google shows agree with the hours on the door.
Tapped once, it opens in the phone's map app. Where to park and which door, if that needs saying. A number that dials with one tap.
A link or an embedded widget from the reservation or ordering service you already use. The service is a third party; more on that below.
Supplied by you. Photography is not included in the price, and in a restaurant it matters more than in almost any other business.
The listing on the map is where most people find a restaurant first. The site's job is to agree with it; more below.
Rather than describe the result, we built one you can open: Verde & Co., a demonstration of a fictional restaurant. The business does not exist, the page says so in a banner at the top and again in the footer, and it is not a client. It exists so you can see the work on your own phone. What to look at, in order:
Six tabs, Tuesday to Sunday, each a different short menu, with a line at the top naming what came in that morning. The point is not the tabs. It is that every dish and every price is text on the page — a section to start, mains and after, each dish with a number beside it. On a real build the menu is whatever yours is: one menu, or lunch and dinner, or a menu that changes every week. It stays text.
Tuesday to Thursday 5 to 10, Friday and Saturday 5 to 11, Sunday 4 to 9, Monday closed, in a block a thumb can find, with a "Reserve a table" button beside it. The same hours are written into the page's structured data, with a flag that the restaurant accepts reservations, so a search engine reads them the way a person does. The demonstration's button points at its own hours block, because there is no real reservation system behind a fictional restaurant; on a real build it opens yours.
The demonstration is built around photographs of a plate and a dining room, because for a restaurant the photograph is most of the decision. The copy is short — twenty-eight seats on Cherry Street, walk-ins welcome at the bar — because a restaurant site does not need paragraphs. It needs the menu, the hours and a way in.
The demonstration is a single page. The pages a larger restaurant adds — private dining, events, catering, gift cards, the story behind the place — are what move a build from the Starter package to the Business package, and both are described below. The other two demonstrations, a roofing company and a salon, are also fictional businesses, and they show the same build method applied to an estimate form and to a priced service list with online booking.
A PDF menu is the most common mistake on restaurant sites and the most expensive one. It has to be downloaded, it is unreadable on a phone without pinching, it cannot be searched, and Google cannot read the dishes inside it, so a search for something you make finds nothing. It also goes out of date, because updating a PDF means opening a design file. On our builds the menu is text with the prices beside the dishes, and changing a price is changing a line. If you also want a printable version for the tables, it can be offered as a download alongside the text, not instead of it.
Kitchen hours and bar hours if they differ, brunch if you do it, the holiday closures, the summer patio. Hours belong in text near the top of the first screen, not inside an image, and in the page's structured data so that Google's listing and your site never disagree. A restaurant site with wrong hours is worse than one with none, because the person who drove over is not coming back.
The address as a link that opens the map app, a line about parking, and, if the entrance is not obvious, which door. A phone number that dials with one tap. These are small things, and they decide whether a first-time visitor arrives.
Reservations, online ordering and delivery run through a service the restaurant chooses. We connect the site to it as a link or as the embedded widget the provider supplies, placed where a visitor will find it and tested so it opens the right thing. The provider is a third party: its subscription, its per-cover or per-order fees and its terms are between you and the provider, and they are not part of our price. A custom ordering or payment system is a different build, scoped on its own, and we will say so rather than squeeze it into a three-page site.
Photography and logo design are not included. You supply the photographs, or we use stock until you have them. Our article on why website projects stall argues that most businesses should launch without waiting for a photographer, and then makes an exception it names directly: restaurants, where the appearance of the food is the purchase decision and placeholders undersell you. Its advice is to launch the pages that do not depend on imagery and stage the visual ones. In practice the menu, hours and contact pages go live first, and the photographs come in as you get them. Swapping a photograph is a five-minute job on a site built this way.
Private dining and events, catering, gift cards, a page for the people and the story, a press page. Each is its own page because each is a separate search and a separate customer. This is the line between the two packages below.
When someone searches for a restaurant near them, or for a kind of food plus "Grand Rapids", the businesses in the map pack are the ones that get the taps. That listing is your Google Business Profile, and it shows your hours, your photographs, your reviews, a menu link and a reservation link before the person has opened your site at all. The local SEO page explains what drives that ranking — the right category, completeness, review volume, consistent listings and activity — and that it is not how good the website looks.
Two consequences for the site. First, every build here includes Google setup: the profile is set up or corrected so it points at the site, and the hours, address and phone on the site match the ones on the profile. Inconsistent name, address and phone data across listings is one of the boring, fixable reasons local businesses lose search traffic. Second, reviews are the thing most likely to move the ranking, and the site cannot generate them. The local SEO page describes a review system that messages customers after a visit and routes happy ones to Google and unhappy ones to you privately first. That work is separate from the site: a one-time Profile Tune-Up is $750 and ongoing management starts at $500 a month per location, both on that page.
Three packages, published, fixed, and quoted in writing before any work starts. The full cards are on the web design page; this is how they map to a restaurant.
Up to three pages, mobile-first, with a lead form, click-to-call, on-page SEO and Google setup. For a restaurant that is a home page with the hours, the reservation or ordering link and the photographs; a menu page in text; and a find-us page with the map, parking and a way to contact you. Right for most single-location restaurants, cafés and bars.
It can be paid as $149 a month for twelve months instead of $999 up front. At the twelfth payment the payments stop and the site is yours outright, and hosting, updates and edits are included the whole time. If you stop early the site comes down, we hold it for 90 days, and you can buy out the balance at any point. Paying up front is cheaper, $999 once against $1,788 over a year.
Five to eight custom pages, copywriting and on-page SEO, local schema, reviews and analytics. For a restaurant with private dining, events, catering or gift cards that each need a page, or a group with more than one room or concept. Half now, half at launch.
Everything in Business plus one custom tool. A restaurant rarely needs one, and we will say so rather than sell it. Where it fits is a private-dining or event inquiry tool that collects the date, the head count and the budget and drops it into your inbox, instead of a form that starts a week of email. The app development page describes what "one custom tool" means and what it does not.
Managed hosting and security, monthly edits and updates, uptime and performance monitoring. For a restaurant the monthly edits are the point: a new menu, a price change, the holiday hours. Optional; the website maintenance page lists what it covers and what it does not.
We write the copy; you do not hand us finished text and hope. Three rounds of revisions are included, and anything after that is quoted before a minute of work happens. A fixed price and a date in writing before you commit, and no hourly meter. You own all of it at the end: code, content, domain, accounts. Cancellation before work starts is a full refund of the deposit; after work starts you pay only for work done. What Grand Rapids web designers charge puts these prices against published local rates.
Photography and logo design; your domain and third-party fees, which for a restaurant means the reservation, ordering or delivery service and any paid app you ask us to connect; hosting after launch unless you take a care plan, though a static site can be handed to you to host free; and regulated copy that needs a specialist to sign off.
The failure mode of restaurant websites is not design. It is the menu from two seasons ago and the hours from before the patio opened. So decide before launch who changes what. You do it. The menu and hours are text, and we show you how to change a line. We do it. The care plan from $199 a month includes monthly edits, so you email the new menu and it is done. Or it is already covered. On the $149-a-month plan, hosting, updates and edits are included for the whole twelve months.
Whichever you choose, the reservation and ordering links need no upkeep, because they are the provider's to run, and the structured hours change in one place. How long a website should take says where the weeks go on a typical project, and for a restaurant with a menu and a price list already written, the answer is days.
One call, a written proposal, a draft you comment on by clicking, and a handover in your name.
Twenty minutes, between services if that is when you have them. The menu, the hours, the reservation service you use. We keep the recording.
Scope, price and a date, in writing, before you commit. 50% to start, or the monthly plan on a Starter site.
Click anywhere on the draft and type. Three rounds of revisions are included.
Domain, hosting and logins registered to you from day one, with a walk-through of how to change the menu. 50% on launch.
We put the menu on the site as text, with the prices beside the dishes, because a PDF has to be downloaded, is hard to read on a phone, cannot be searched, and cannot be read by Google. If you want a printable version for the tables, it can be offered as a download alongside the text, not instead of it.
We connect the site to the ordering, delivery or reservation service you choose, as a link or the embedded widget the provider supplies, and test that it opens the right thing. The provider is a third party and its fees are yours. A custom ordering or payment system is a different build, scoped on its own, and we would say so rather than squeeze it into a three-page site.
No, but a restaurant is the one kind of business where photography is close to the product, so it is worth getting. Photography is not included in the price. The site can launch with the menu, hours and contact pages first and bring the photographs in as you get them; swapping a photograph is a five-minute job.
Yes. The build happens over a call and a shared link, so a restaurant in Holland, Rockford or Kalamazoo gets the same site as one downtown. There are separate pages for Kent County and West Michigan.
On the Starter site, yes: $149 a month for twelve months, then the payments stop and the site is yours outright. You can buy out the remaining balance whenever you like. If you stop early the site comes down and we hold it for 90 days with the buy-out open. Paying up front is cheaper: $999 once against $1,788 over a year.
Tell me the restaurant, the hours and the reservation or ordering service you use. I'll tell you which package fits and what it costs, in writing.