Does your restaurant need a website? Yes. And here is why.
A single table booking from Google is worth forty to two hundred pounds. Your website only needs to fill one extra table a week to pay for itself many times over.
"We are on Google Maps and Just Eat. That is enough."
If you run a restaurant, you have probably said this. You are on Google Maps. You are listed on Just Eat or Deliveroo. Your Instagram is full of food photos. People find you. The tables are busy. Why would you need a website?
Because every one of those platforms takes something from you. Just Eat and Deliveroo take 25 to 35 percent of every order. Google Maps shows your competitors right next to you. Instagram decides who sees your posts based on an algorithm you do not control. None of these platforms exist to grow your business. They exist to grow theirs.
A website is the only digital presence you fully own. It is the one place where you control the message, the experience, and the relationship with your customer. Everything else is rented space.
The commission trap
Delivery platforms are convenient. They bring orders in without you lifting a finger. But look at the numbers.
If your average delivery order is forty pounds and Just Eat takes 30 percent, that is twelve pounds gone. On a busy Friday night with fifty delivery orders, you have handed over six hundred pounds in commission. In a month, that can be several thousand pounds. In a year, it is the cost of a new kitchen fit-out.
A restaurant website with its own online ordering or a simple phone-and-collect system keeps that money in your pocket. Even if only half your delivery customers order through your site instead of the platform, you have saved thousands a year. That is not a theoretical saving. That is cash flow.
The platforms know this. That is why they make it so easy to sign up and so hard to leave. But the maths does not lie. Every order through your own website is an order where you keep the full margin.
What people search before choosing a restaurant
Think about how you choose a restaurant when you are in an unfamiliar area. You search. "Restaurants near me." "Italian restaurant Leicester." "Best Sunday lunch near me." You look at the results. You click on the ones that look good.
If a restaurant has a proper website, you see the menu, the atmosphere, the story. You get a feel for the place before you walk through the door. If they only have a Google Maps listing, you see an address, some reviews, and a few photos that may or may not be theirs.
The restaurant with a website wins that decision more often. Not because they have more reviews or a better location. Because they gave the customer enough information to feel confident. A website lets you show your menu the way you want it shown. It lets you show your dining room, your team, your values. It answers the questions customers have before they book.
A Google listing cannot do that. It shows the basics and moves on. A website tells your story.
Your Instagram is not a website
Instagram is brilliant for restaurants. The food photos, the behind-the-scenes content, the stories. It builds a following and keeps regulars engaged. But it is not a website, and treating it as one costs you customers.
Instagram does not rank on Google. When someone searches "restaurant near me," your Instagram page does not appear in the results. It cannot. Google indexes websites, not social media feeds. If Instagram is your only online presence, you are invisible to everyone who searches instead of scrolls.
Instagram also does not display a menu properly. It cannot show your opening hours in a format Google can read. It does not have a booking form. It does not load reliably on slow connections. And it decides how many of your own followers see your posts. On average, organic reach on Instagram is between 5 and 10 percent of your followers. You are shouting into a room where 90 percent of the people have their backs turned.
Use Instagram for marketing. Use a website for everything else.
What a restaurant website actually needs
A restaurant website does not need to be complicated. It needs to do a handful of things well.
A homepage that shows who you are and what kind of experience you offer. A menu page that is easy to read on a phone, not a PDF that takes ten seconds to download and requires pinching and zooming to read. A location and opening hours page that Google can index properly. A booking option, whether that is a form, a phone number, or a link to your reservation system. And photos that show the atmosphere, the food, and the space.
That is five pages. Done properly, they answer every question a potential customer has before they decide to visit. Done poorly, or not done at all, those questions go unanswered and the customer goes somewhere else.
One thing restaurants consistently underestimate is the menu. A PDF menu is one of the most common mistakes on the internet. It is slow to load, impossible to read on a phone, invisible to Google, and inaccessible to screen readers. Your menu should be an HTML page. Text that Google can read, that loads instantly, and that looks good on every screen.
The ROI question
How much is one table worth to you?
A couple spending forty to eighty pounds on a meal. A group of friends spending one hundred to two hundred. A family celebration pushing three hundred or more. Add drinks, desserts, and the wine margin, and a single booking can be worth a significant amount.
Now think about what happens when that customer becomes a regular. A couple who comes once a month is worth five hundred to a thousand pounds a year. A family who books for every birthday and anniversary is worth even more. And satisfied customers recommend you to friends. One booking leads to two. Two leads to five.
A website that brings in one extra table per week from Google search has paid for itself within the first month. That is not optimism. That is what happens when you show up where people are already looking for somewhere to eat.
Compare that to the commission you are paying delivery platforms. The website earns you full-margin customers. The platform takes a third of every order. The maths is not complicated.
Speed, schema, and showing up in "near me" searches
Local search is where restaurants live or die online. "Restaurant near me" is one of the most searched terms on Google. To appear in those results, you need more than a Maps listing. You need a website that Google can read and trust.
Schema markup tells Google exactly what your restaurant serves, where it is, when it is open, and what the price range is. This structured data feeds directly into rich results, map packs, and knowledge panels. A restaurant with proper schema markup is more likely to appear with its menu, opening hours, and star rating directly in the search results. That is the difference between a click and a scroll past.
Speed matters too. A website that loads in under a second on a mobile phone feels professional. A website that takes four seconds feels like the restaurant does not care about the experience. Google measures this and uses it to decide who ranks higher. A fast, clean, properly marked-up restaurant website will outperform a slow template every time.
You would not serve a customer a cold meal and expect them to come back. Do not serve them a slow website either.
The bottom line
You are paying 25 to 35 percent commission on every delivery order to platforms that exist to grow their business, not yours. Your Instagram looks great but does not rank on Google. Your Maps listing shows your competitors right next to you. None of these things are yours, and all of them are quietly taking money or visibility away from you.
A restaurant website is five pages: homepage, HTML menu, location and hours, booking, and about. Done properly, it answers every question a customer has before they choose where to eat. Done with schema markup, it feeds Google your menu, your opening hours, and your price range directly into the search results. One extra table a week from Google search pays for the entire site.
You would not serve a cold meal and expect someone to come back. Do not serve a slow website, or no website at all, and expect them to find you.
How we can help
We build restaurant websites that bring diners to your door. Not delivery platform pages. Not social media placeholders. A fast, beautiful website that is entirely yours.
Your menu as proper HTML that Google can read, not a PDF download. Professional photography that does your food justice. Reservation integration that works with your existing booking system. Full schema markup so you appear in local search with your opening hours, menu, and reviews visible in the results.
We handle hosting, maintenance, and updates. When the menu changes, the website changes. No delays, no excuses.