Eight restaurant website mistakes, still common

Restaurant website mistakes are easy to make and easy to miss. A website that looks wonderful to the owner on a large screen in the office can be frustrating to a guest on a phone in the street at half past six, trying to find out whether the venue is open and whether there is a table. The mistakes are rarely dramatic. They are small frictions: a delay, a hidden button, a file that will not open, a number that cannot be tapped. Each one loses a few guests, quietly, every day.

Many of these mistakes have been around for years and are still common. They persist because nobody at the venue experiences the site the way guests do. The owner knows where everything is. The designer tested it on a fast connection. Guests, meanwhile, give up and book somewhere else, and nobody ever knows they came.

This guide sets out eight restaurant website mistakes that are still common, why each one costs bookings, and how to fix it. It covers music on load, PDF menus, missing phone numbers, hours in images, booking buttons below the fold, slow loading, pop-ups and websites not built for a phone. It ends with a simple test you can run on your own restaurant website in ten minutes.

A guest deciding where to eat usually looks at several venues in a few minutes. If one website makes them work harder than another, by loading slowly, hiding the hours or burying the booking button, they move on. They do not compare the food carefully; they choose the venue that answered their questions first.

That makes every small friction expensive. A website that loses even a small share of visitors at each step can lose a meaningful number of bookings over a year, without anyone noticing, because the guests who left never booked and never complained.

The fixes are usually simple. Most of these mistakes can be corrected in an afternoon.

Music or video that plays automatically when the page opens is one of the oldest restaurant website mistakes, and it still appears. A guest opens the site on a train, in an office or late at night, and the page starts playing sound. Most close it immediately. Even those who stay are distracted from the information they came for.

Autoplaying video also slows the page, especially on a phone, and uses the guest's mobile data. A large video at the top of the home page can delay everything else on the page by several seconds.

The fix: remove autoplaying music entirely. If you want to show video, let guests choose to play it, keep it short and make sure the page's key information loads first.

A PDF menu is the most common mistake of all. It is slow to open on a phone, hard to read without zooming, awkward to scroll and harder for search engines to understand than a menu written as part of the page. It is also easy to forget, so it drifts out of date.

The menu is often the most visited page on a restaurant website. Making it a PDF puts the biggest friction on the most important page.

The fix: publish the menu on your website as a web page, with clear sections, prices, short descriptions and dietary marks. Our guide to the menu on your website, not in a PDF explains how.

Some restaurant websites have no visible phone number, or hide it at the bottom of one page. Others show it as text that cannot be tapped to call on a phone. Yet many guests want to call: to ask about a table tonight, a large group, an allergy, parking or a celebration.

A guest who cannot find the number, or has to copy it by hand, may give up. A guest who taps it and calls has a good chance of becoming a booking.

The fix: show the phone number clearly, on every page, as a link that can be tapped to call. Make sure it is answered during opening hours, or that the booking link is prominent enough that guests book instead.

Opening hours shown as an image, such as a graphic designed to match the menu, or a photograph of the sign on the door, look attractive but cause problems. Search engines cannot read them, screen readers cannot read them for guests who use them, and guests cannot copy them. They are also harder to update, so they are more likely to be wrong.

Wrong hours are among the most damaging mistakes a venue can make. A guest who arrives to find the venue closed is unlikely to return.

The fix: write the hours as text, on the home page and the find us page, including any regular closures and holiday hours. Update them whenever they change, at the same time as your Google listing.

The fold is the bottom of the screen before the guest scrolls. On many restaurant websites, the booking button is below it: at the end of a long home page, inside a menu, or only on a contact page. Guests who are ready to book have to search for it, and some stop searching.

On a phone, the fold is very close to the top. A large photograph and a paragraph of text can push the booking button well out of sight.

The fix: put a booking button at the top of every page, in the same place, visible without scrolling on a phone. Many sites keep it in a bar that stays at the top or bottom of the screen as the guest scrolls. Our guide to online booking on your own site covers the booking itself.

Website speed matters more than most restaurants realise. A site that takes several seconds to load on a mobile connection loses visitors before they see anything. Large photographs, autoplaying video, heavy fonts, too many scripts and slow hosting all add to the delay.

Guests rarely wait. If the page is blank for a few seconds, many will go back and choose the next result. Speed also affects how pages perform in search.

The fix: optimise every image for the web, remove autoplaying video, limit the number of fonts and scripts, and test the site on a phone on a mobile connection. Google's guidance on Core Web Vitals is a useful guide to how quickly a page should appear and respond.

Pop-ups that ask for an email address, announce an offer or show a cookie notice the moment the page opens are common, and on a phone they can cover the whole screen. The guest has to find a tiny close button before they can see anything. Some close the site instead.

Pop-ups are not always wrong. A cookie notice may be required, and a newsletter sign-up can be useful. The problem is a pop-up that blocks the information guests came for.

The fix: keep pop-ups to a minimum, make them easy to close, and never let them cover the booking button or the menu on a phone. Put the newsletter sign-up in the footer or after the guest has looked around, rather than at the door.

Many restaurant websites were designed on a large screen and only adapted to phones afterwards, if at all. On a phone, text is tiny, buttons are hard to tap, menus are hidden behind confusing icons and pages need sideways scrolling. Yet most guests visit restaurant websites on a phone.

A mobile website, built for the phone first and then adapted for larger screens, avoids these problems. Text is readable without zooming, buttons are large enough to tap, and the most important information appears first. The general idea of the mobile web, browsing on phones and other small devices, now describes how most guests experience a restaurant online.

The fix: test every page on a phone, and redesign anything that is hard to use. If the site cannot be made to work well on a phone, it may be time for a simpler one.

Beyond the eight, a few other mistakes are worth checking:

Each is a small friction, and each is easy to fix.

The booking page deserves the same scrutiny as the website, because it is where interest becomes a table. A booking page that is slow, needs zooming, asks for too much information or offers nothing when the chosen time is full undoes everything the website achieved.

Check that it opens quickly from every booking button, works on a phone, shows available times clearly, asks only for what you need and confirms the booking straight away. Check that it looks like the venue, so guests trust it. Our guide to the booking widget and the four taps that lose a guest covers the details.

Some mistakes affect guests with disabilities more than others, and they are easy to overlook. Text in images cannot be read by screen readers. Low contrast between text and background makes pages hard to read for many guests, and for everyone in bright sunlight. Buttons that say only "click here" do not tell screen reader users where they lead. Information about step-free access, accessible toilets and seating is often missing altogether.

Fixing these helps every guest. Use real text, strong contrast, descriptive buttons and alternative text for images, and include clear accessibility information on the find us page.

Not every mistake is technical. Vague copy, such as "a unique dining experience" or "the best food in town", tells guests nothing. Long paragraphs about the venue's philosophy push practical information down the page. Jargon, such as dish names without descriptions, leaves guests unsure what they would be ordering.

Write for a hungry guest in a hurry: what the food is, where the venue is, when it is open and how to book, in plain words, near the top of every page. Keep the story short, and let the photographs and the menu do the persuading.

A redesign is a common moment for new mistakes. Old links that guests and search engines relied on stop working. The booking button moves somewhere new and harder to find. Photographs are uploaded at full size and slow the site down. The menu is re-uploaded as a PDF because it is quicker. Hours are designed into a graphic to match the new look.

After any redesign, run the ten-minute test straight away, check that old links redirect to the right new pages, and compare bookings from the website in the weeks before and after.

Holidays and closures are when website mistakes do the most damage, because guests make special plans around them. A venue closed on a public holiday, with normal hours still on the website, sends guests to a locked door on the very day they wanted to celebrate. A festive menu advertised after the season has ended confuses guests looking for the regular menu.

Update the website before every holiday and closure, at the same time as the Google listing and social profiles, and remove seasonal information as soon as the season is over. A short line at the top of the home page, such as "Closed on Monday for the public holiday; open as usual from Tuesday", tells every visitor at once.

Run this test on your own restaurant website, on a phone, on a mobile connection, as if you were a guest who has never visited:

Note every moment of hesitation. Each one is a mistake to fix.

If the test reveals several problems, fix them in order of impact. Wrong hours and a hidden booking button usually cost the most and are quickest to fix. A PDF menu and a slow site come next. Pop-ups, music and phone numbers are often quick changes. A site that does not work on a phone may need more work, but it is worth it.

Our guide to the restaurant website that only needs five pages covers what a simple, effective site looks like, which can be easier than fixing a complicated one.

Mistakes creep back over time. A new photograph is uploaded without being optimised. A holiday closure is added as an image. A designer adds a pop-up for an event. A new menu is uploaded as a PDF because it is quicker.

Make one person responsible for the website, run the ten-minute test every month, and update the site whenever anything changes at the venue. A short checklist, hours, menu, booking link and phone number, keeps the basics right.

Measure the effect of each fix on bookings. Website analytics can show how many visitors reach the menu and booking pages, and how long pages take to load. The booking system shows how many bookings come from the website. Compare the weeks before and after a change.

Do not expect every fix to show a dramatic change on its own. Together, removing several small frictions can make a noticeable difference to how many visitors become guests.

Here is an illustrative venue that ran the ten-minute test. The details are examples.

The fixes took an afternoon: the video and music were removed, the hours were written as text and corrected, the menu was published as a web page, a booking button was added to the top of every page, and the phone number became a tappable link. The next month, more visitors reached the booking page and more of them booked.

servearound does not build your website, but it helps with two of the mistakes. The digital menu is a live web page rather than a PDF, readable on a phone with sections and dietary filters, and always current because it comes from the same dishes as the rest of the venue. The booking page runs on its own link or embedded in your site, in your colours, so a booking button at the top of every page can open it directly and guests can book in a few taps.

When a venue publishes them, its booking page and menu page can be found by search engines. See Campaigns, or get in touch.

Wrong opening hours, closely followed by a hidden booking button.

Yes, for most venues. A web page is faster, easier to read on a phone and better for search.

Fast enough that something useful appears almost immediately on a phone. Test it on a mobile connection.

No, but they should be easy to close and never cover the menu or the booking button.

Run the ten-minute test monthly, and update the site whenever anything changes.

Often not. Most of these mistakes can be fixed without a redesign.

Ideally someone who does not know the site well, using their own phone. A fresh pair of eyes notices the frictions the owner has learned to ignore.

Several do. Slow pages, PDF menus and hours in images all make it harder for search engines to understand and show the venue, so fixing them helps twice.

Eight restaurant website mistakes are still common: music on load, a PDF menu, no phone number, hours in an image, a booking button below the fold, poor website speed, pop-ups that cover the page and a site not built as a mobile website. Each is a small friction that quietly costs bookings.

Fix them by removing autoplaying media, publishing the menu on your website as a page, making the phone number tappable, writing hours as text, putting booking at the top of every page, optimising for speed, keeping pop-ups out of the way and designing for the phone first. Run the ten-minute test monthly, and keep the mistakes from coming back.