How to make a restaurant website — that fills tables, not just clicks.

Yes — even if 90% of your customers come from walk-ins. The site is what Google shows when someone Googles your name, what aggregators (Yelp, OpenTable, Google Business) link to, and what visitors check at 6pm trying to decide where to eat. Without a site, you cede that decision to other restaurants who have one. The minimum to be live: menu, hours, address, phone, and one photo of the food. That's it. Modern AI builders ship that in 30 seconds.

DIY with a builder: $0 to $30 per month for the popular options. Modern AI builders include hosting, SSL, and restaurant templates in their paid plans — Wix Light is $17/mo and Squarespace Personal is $16/mo; Zarla bundles the same plus CRM, bookings, and invoicing on Premium. Hiring an agency: $3,000-$15,000 one-time plus $50-$150/mo for hosting and maintenance. Restaurant-specific platforms (Toast, BentoBox): $0 if bundled with their POS, $150+ standalone. For most independents, the AI-builder route is the right answer — same outcome, a tiny fraction of the cost.

Menu, hours, address, phone, and a reservations link — visible on every page. Modern AI builders generate that structure automatically. Beyond the basics: real photos of YOUR food (not stock), a quick chef or owner story, press or review quotes if you have any, an events / private-dining page if relevant, and an Instagram link in the footer. Skip carousels, autoplay videos, and "click to enter" splash screens — they all hurt mobile conversion.

Depends on what else you need. For a clean site with menu, hours, and reservations: Zarla, Squarespace, or Wix. For POS + payments + online ordering bundled into one: Toast or BentoBox. For pure online ordering volume with a website on top: Shopify with a restaurant theme. Zarla is the only one of these where you can fully build and preview your site for free before any decision — useful even if you eventually land on a different platform.

In Zarla: type the items and prices into the menu block; the AI handles formatting and dietary tags. In Wix or Squarespace: use the built-in menu component or paste in your items. In agency builds: send the agency a Word doc. AVOID uploading the menu as a PDF only — search engines can't read PDFs, so Google won't show your dish names in search results. Use real text menu items on the page, with the PDF as a download link if customers prefer it.

Yes — every modern builder supports direct online ordering. Zarla, Wix Restaurants, Squarespace, Toast, and BentoBox all let you take orders straight from your site with a 2-3% transaction fee. The trade-off vs. third-party platforms (DoorDash, Uber Eats, ~25-30% fee) is volume: third-party brings discovery, owned site keeps the margin. Most independents use both — third-party for new-customer discovery, the owned site for repeat orders where customers already know your name.

Two separate steps. First: claim your Google Business profile (free, takes 5 minutes) — that's the listing with hours, photos, and reviews that shows up on Google Maps and the "restaurants near me" panel. Second: launch a website with proper SEO meta tags, an address that matches your Google Business listing exactly, and structured-data blocks (every AI builder ships these automatically). Within a few weeks Google ties the two together. Your reservations and your website both benefit.

Start with Zarla. It's the only option where you can see your full restaurant site — your dish names, your color palette, real food photography for your cuisine — before creating an account or paying. Type one sentence about your restaurant; the site appears in about 30 seconds. If it's the right fit, upgrading to Premium publishes it to your own domain with reservations, bookings, and the lot. If not, you've spent zero dollars and learned something about what your site COULD look like — useful whichever builder you eventually pick.