restaurant website design

Like any kind of business website design, restaurant website design is critical because it is often the first encounter a potential diner has with the restaurant. Just think about it: When you are deciding to go to eat? How do you narrow down your decision? Price, proximity, the kind of food offered… all information you find on the restaurant website. 

For a restaurant owner, a powerful website design sells a restaurant’s food and promises a delicious experience to everyone who comes to visit. It can have a significant impact on your business as a core part of your restaurant’s visual branding. 

According to a recent survey, the majority (89%) of hundreds of small start-up leaders in hospitality across Australia, the UK, New Zealand, and North America believe branding to be crucial to their overall success, with 83% saying that it contributes to revenue growth. 87% of this same group report their branding helps draw in new customers, and 93% say it helps build trust.  

Key Restaurant Website Design Elements

A perfect restaurant website has a lot in common with other perfect websites. No matter what kind of business website is, it needs to have legible text, large and engaging images, and a clear visual hierarchy, among other design elements. But there are also key ingredients to creating a successful restaurant website design, and these ingredients are:

• Focus On The Food

The most essential part of any restaurant is THE FOOD! It needs to be prominent on your website. That is why large, high-resolution, visually appealing images are a must-have in any restaurant website design. 

Of course, your website should feature everything that makes you stand out, like your unparalleled ambiance, innovative use of tech, location inside a historic building, or second-to-none banquet facility, but even with all these offerings, your FOOD is the real star. Don’t sell it short with low-quality, boring images or a focus on anything other than the food. 

• Make Navigation A Piece Of Cake

Navigation has to be simple yet intuitive. A visitor should not wonder how to get around your website and find the info they are looking for. 

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to navigation. Add a navigation bar along the header, footer, or vertical edge of your website.  Also, make sure it is clear and obvious. However, if you really want to be involved in some foodie fun, try a hamburger menu. 

• Serve Up All The Vital Information

As a restaurant owner, you probably answer all these questions frequently or possibly even daily.:

• Where are you located?
• How can I order?
• What is your phone number?
• Where can I see your menu?
• What are your specials?
• How can I make a reservation?
• What is on your menu?

Your website design can save you a lot of time by making all this information quickly available. You can do that by adding the information that does not change, like your address and phone number in the header, and adding information that does change like your daily specials, in a homepage slide, popup on the homepage, or in a scrolling banner. Your website should also feature your menu in a front and center spot.   

However, if you want to include online food delivery, investing in website design services might be better. Web professionals have all the tools and experience required for this work. 

Feast On These Restaurant Website Designs

If you are a restaurant owner or a designer tasked with creating a restaurant website design, then check out how the following restaurants are showcasing their goodies. It will give you a good understanding of how restaurant websites are designed and can give you some inspiration for your own. 

• Bar Isabel

Bar Isabel’s website keeps it simple and concentrates on the food. All the information you need is there on the short homepage: where the restaurant is located, what is on the menu, order takeout, options to reserve a table, and most importantly, a slideshow of artful images, showing the restaurant’s interior and exterior, food and the team at work. It is a clean look; no distracting animations or backgrounds here. Just a simple website that covers everything a diner needs. 

• Michi Ramen

The simplicity is the excellent thing about Michi Ramen’s website. After scrolling past the mouth-watering image of a bowl of ramen, you see a quick graphic on how to order your bowl. If you have never had ramen before, this graphic makes ordering from Michi Ramen extremely simple.  So, check out the About page for some savory ramen ingredient knolling. Just as I told you, the vibe of simplicity is what you’ll feel throughout the website. 

•  Bâtard

Your visit to the website begins with watching the protagonist choose a bottle of wine from the hundreds that line Bâtard’s shelves. Later, you follow him into the restaurant where he sits opposite a woman, spins around his wine, and twirls his fork in a serving of spaghetti. 

It is a brief story yet a compelling one. Bâtard’s website presents the brand they have built by offering up a massive range of wines in a cool, intimate setting. Scroll down, and you will see images of the dishes and options to book private wine-tasting events. We love the aspect of storytelling and how Bâtard shows rather than tells with exceptional videography. 

• Claro

Visiting this website is like watching a movie. You see everything: close-ups of savory dishes, behind-the-scenes images of the team hard at work in the kitchen, genuine captures of diners laughing and enjoying, and action scenes of bartenders shaking up cocktails. Laid over the movie is awesome white text, with different sets of information in different sections of the screen.

Every page has a full-image background and the gallery page is a camera roll of scrumptiousness. Throughout the website, Claro gives diners a sense of the restaurant’s look and feel, communicating the atmosphere as well as the food they expect when they visit. The easy navigation and picturesque layout not only attract audiences to visit the restaurant but also give a vibe of professionalism from the very first glance. 

• Kikunoi

Like the other restaurant website design in this list, Kikunoi’s website puts the food front and center with large, colorful images. The image alternates between shots of the food and the main restaurant’s lush surroundings. We also truly like how this website guides you to move through it. It is simple, but the little “scroll” heading feels like a good bit of conversation with the restaurant. 

• Malai

An ice cream parlor is a type of restaurant, right? We truly love how this website makes use of color and movement. Just scroll down the page, and you are treated to warm contrasting images and text blocks moving in across from parallax as a white mandala in the page’s center spins. 

One awesome feature on Malai’s website is its Recipes section. Here, you can find recipes for all sorts of treats, like brownies and french toast, that either include or pair with Malai’s unique ice creams. 

Conclusion 

All these websites look amazing but have you ever thought about who was behind them? A remarkable website designer with the vision and skill to handcraft such eye-pleasing and business-driven websites. If you need a custom website design for your restaurant looks out for the best designers in USA for a little help. 

That’s it for this write-up, I’ll meet you in the next. Till then, ciao adios.