You run a cozy café. Saturdays are a blur of steam wands and clattering cups. But midweek — chairs sit empty. Why? Because when someone searches "café near me" on their phone, you're invisible. Your Google Maps listing is there, but there's no website to click. No menu to browse. No "Reserve a Table" button. So they go somewhere else.
This is fixable. Today, before dinner service.
This guide walks you through building a real restaurant website — with a digital menu, online reservations, and a QR code for every table — without writing a line of code. The whole thing takes one afternoon.
Key Takeaways:
- Studies suggest the majority of diners (surveys cite 70–80%) check a restaurant's website before deciding where to eat — a Google Maps listing alone isn't enough
- A proper restaurant website needs exactly five things: a digital menu, reservations, opening hours, a photo gallery, and a QR code
- You can describe your restaurant to an AI builder and have a live site by end of day — no coding, no designer required
In This Article
- What Your Restaurant Website Actually Needs
- Step 1: Describe Your Restaurant to AI
- Step 2: Build Your Digital Menu
- Step 3: Add Online Reservations
- Step 4: Generate Your QR Code
- Step 5: Go Live
- What Changes After Launch
- Build Your Restaurant Site Now
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Your Restaurant Website Actually Needs
Here's where most owners waste time: they try to build the perfect website instead of a good-enough website that actually exists today.
Your restaurant website builder needs to cover exactly five things:
- A digital menu — with sections, prices, photos for your top items, and dietary tags (vegan, gluten-free, spicy)
- A reservations form — or a booking link to a free system like GloriaFood, Tock, or Resy
- Your opening hours — visible on the homepage, not buried on a contact page
- A photo gallery — your dining space plus at least 5 signature dishes
- A QR code — linked to your live menu page, printable on table tents by tonight
That's it. No blog. No live chat. No online ordering system on day one. Start with these five, get live, then improve.
One thing worth knowing: the majority of restaurant searches happen on phones — industry figures consistently put mobile at 70% or more of local food searches. Your site has to look good on a small screen, because that's how customers will actually see it. Everything else is secondary.
Step 1: Describe Your Restaurant to AI
This is where non-technical owners get surprised. You don't need to "build" anything in the traditional sense. You describe what you want in plain English, and the AI builds it.
Think of it like briefing a contractor. The more specific you are, the better the result.
Here's a prompt that works:
"Build a website for [Your Restaurant Name] in [City]. Include a hero section with a photo of the dining space and a 'Reserve a Table' button. Add a full digital menu with sections for Starters, Mains, Desserts, and Drinks — each item needs a name, short description, price, and dietary icons (vegan, gluten-free, spicy). Add a reservation form with fields for name, date, time, and party size. Show opening hours on the homepage. Include a photo gallery, a Google Maps embed, and a contact section with phone and email. Warm, appetizing color palette. Mobile-first."
You'll get a complete site structure from that single description. No Figma mockups. No theme hunting. No CSS.
The complete small business website guide has more detail on how to write AI prompts for different business types, but for restaurants the key is specificity: name your menu sections, list your dietary tags, and always say "mobile-first."
And honestly? The biggest mistake I see café owners make is being vague. "Build me a nice café website" produces something generic. "Build a website for a 30-seat espresso café in Portland that specializes in single-origin coffee and brunch" produces something that actually looks like your place.
Step 2: Build Your Digital Menu
Your digital menu is the most important part of this whole build. Industry estimates suggest restaurants with interactive digital menus see meaningful sales lifts — commonly cited in the 15–20% range — compared to those with PDF menus or no online menu at all. And interactive means customers can actually browse it on their phone — not download a file that's probably a year out of date.
How to structure your menu:
Most café and restaurant menus work best with 4–6 sections:
- Starters / Snacks
- Mains / Entrées
- Desserts / Pastries
- Drinks (can split into Hot / Cold / Cocktails)
- Specials / Seasonal (optional — great for conversion if you rotate it)
For each item, you want:
- Name
- Short description — one line, appetite-driven: "slow-cooked in rosemary jus" beats "beef stew"
- Price
- Dietary icons — at minimum: vegan (V), gluten-free (GF), contains nuts, spicy
On photos: You don't need a professional photographer for every item. Pick your 5 most visual dishes and photograph them with your phone in natural light. Those go on the site. Everything else gets a description only — that's fine and looks intentional.
The PDF menu problem: A lot of cafés still link to a PDF. Stop. Here's why it matters:
| PDF Menu | Digital Menu (web page) | |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile experience | Pinch-to-zoom, horizontal scroll | Responsive, reads like a webpage |
| Update price/add dish | Re-upload file, re-link everywhere | Edit once, live instantly |
| QR code compatible | Yes — but breaks if URL changes | Yes — works with dynamic QR codes |
| Search engine visibility | None (PDF text not indexed well) | Full — every item name is indexed |
| Dietary filter / icons | Static image or text only | Interactive tags (V, GF, spicy) |
| Analytics | None | Page views, most-browsed items |
Your digital menu should be actual text on an actual webpage. When you update a price or add a seasonal dish, you change it in one place and every visitor — and every QR scan — sees it instantly.
Step 3: Add Online Reservations
This is where people overthink it. You don't need a full reservation management system with floor plans and POS integration on day one — especially if you're running a single-location café. You need something that works and doesn't take a cut of your covers.
Here's a quick comparison of your main options:
| System | Cost | Best For | Setup Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| GloriaFood | Free forever | Cafés under 50 covers | 20 min |
| Tock | Free for small venues | Indie restaurants, ticketed seatings | 30 min |
| Resy | Free tier available | Stylish independent restaurants | 30 min |
| Google Form + Calendar | Free | Very small cafés, zero-fuss option | 10 min |
| OpenTable | $249+/month | High-volume chains — skip for small ops | 1 hour |
For most independent cafés and small restaurants, GloriaFood is the answer. It's completely free, generates a booking widget you paste into your site, handles confirmation emails, and sends SMS reminder texts to guests before their booking — which means fewer no-shows, something small cafés with limited covers feel hard.
If you want something that looks more upscale, Tock has a clean UI and a free tier for smaller venues. Lots of independent spots that want to project a bit more polish use it.
The one to skip for now: OpenTable. Unless you're doing serious covers volume, the monthly fees make no sense when free alternatives do 90% of what you need.
Whichever you pick, you'll get an embed — usually a button or a small booking form. Your AI-built restaurant website can accept these directly. You don't need a developer. You paste the embed link into the reservations section and you're done.
Step 4: Generate Your QR Code
This is the step most owners skip. It's also the step that changes your dining room.
Here's what happens when you put a QR code on every table: guests scan it while they're settling in, they see your full menu before the server arrives, they notice the dietary tags, they spot the specials. Table turn time drops. Your staff spend less time reciting the menu and more time actually serving. Restaurant operators who've made the switch report that QR menus noticeably cut average service time — anecdotally around 10–15 minutes per table — which can translate to meaningfully more turns over a full service shift.
Dynamic vs static QR codes: This matters. A static QR code encodes your URL directly. If that URL ever changes, the code breaks. A dynamic QR code points to a short redirect URL that you control. When you update your menu page URL, you update the redirect — the printed code still works. Always use dynamic. Most free generators offer them.
How to generate yours:
Get Your Menu URL
Once your site is live, it'll have a dedicated menu page — something like yourrestaurant.com/menu. Copy that URL.
Create the QR Code
Go to QR Code Monkey (free, no account needed). Select "Website URL," paste your menu link, click Generate. Download as PNG at 300 DPI or higher.
Design and Print Your Table Cards
Open Canva, search "table tent menu card," drop your QR code image onto the template, and add a short label: "Scan for our menu." Export as PDF and print at your nearest copy shop or home printer.
That's it. You can have printed table cards on every table tonight.
Size tip: Make the QR code at least 4cm × 4cm. Anything smaller fails to scan consistently on older phones, and the last thing you want is a frustrated guest jabbing their screen at a tiny square.
Step 5: Go Live
Before you share anything, do a real phone test:
- Open your website on an actual phone (not a browser preview on your laptop)
- Tap the reservation button — does it work end-to-end?
- Check the menu — are prices showing? Do dietary icons appear?
- Scroll to the bottom — is your phone number visible?
If everything checks out:
- Connect your domain. If you don't have one yet,
yourrestaurantname.comcosts about $12/year through Google Domains or Namecheap. Your website builder will walk you through connecting it — usually a 5-minute DNS change. (The 10-minute AI website guide has a tight launch checklist if you want to double-check nothing is missing.) - Claim and update your Google Business Profile. This one is non-negotiable — it determines whether you appear when someone nearby searches "café near me" or "restaurant open now." Four things to do right now:
- Claim your listing at business.google.com if you haven't already
- Add your new website URL so the Maps card links directly to your site
- Upload food photos — at least 5 of your best dishes; Google shows these in Maps results
- Ask your first regulars for a review — even two or three reviews dramatically improve your local ranking
- Add the URL to your Instagram bio. Simple, but important — Instagram is still where new customers first discover independent restaurants.
Your site is live. This took one afternoon.
For a broader overview of exactly what to check before you share your URL widely, the no-code website building guide has a useful launch checklist that applies to any business type, not just restaurants.
What Changes After Launch
Here's the part most tutorials skip: what actually improves once you're live.
First thing you'll notice: guests arriving who already know what they want to order. They've pre-decided on the pork belly or the almond croissant because they browsed your menu on the walk over. That mental shift — from "what do they have?" to "I already know what I want" — makes the whole visit feel different. Service is faster. Guests are more relaxed. Your staff spend less time explaining the menu to five tables simultaneously.
Second thing: midweek reservations actually start coming in. Once you have a bookable site, you can run a simple promotion: "Book a table for Tuesday–Thursday and get a complimentary dessert." Post it to your Instagram followers and pin it to your Google Business profile. You'll see more midweek covers within the first week.
Third thing: people will call you specifically to say they found your website and wanted to book. Which sounds absurd until you realize how many of your nearby competitors still don't have one.
If you want a side-by-side walkthrough of how this build works for another service business, the hair salon version of this guide follows the same pattern and covers some useful details about booking confirmations and gallery setup.
Build Your Restaurant Site Now
Here's the exact prompt. Replace the brackets with your actual details — restaurant name, city, and anything specific about your vibe. Paste it in, and you'll have a fully structured restaurant website in minutes: menu sections, reservation form, photo gallery, QR code section, the lot.
Try this prompt⌘+Enterto launch
You Might Also Like
- The Small Business Website Playbook — The complete guide to building any small business website with AI, with industry-specific recipes for salons, clinics, lawyers, and more.
- Build a Hair Salon Website in One Afternoon — Same format, different vertical — useful if you're helping someone in the beauty space get online.
- Build a Website with AI in 10 Minutes Flat — The core AI website workflow stripped down to the fastest path.
- AI Website Builder for Startups — If you're building the café from scratch (or thinking about a second location), this guide covers the startup-to-launch workflow at a slightly bigger scale.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best website builder for a restaurant?
For small restaurants and independent cafés, an AI restaurant website builder is the fastest and most affordable option. You describe what you want in plain English, and the AI structures your site — menu, reservations, photos, everything. Traditional builders like Wix or Squarespace work too, but they require significantly more setup time and design decisions upfront.
How do I create a QR code menu for my restaurant?
First, build a live digital menu on your website so it has its own URL. Then go to a free dynamic QR code generator (QR Code Monkey works well), paste your menu page URL, and download the image. Print it at 4cm × 4cm minimum on your table cards, and add a short label — "Scan for our menu." Use a dynamic code so future menu updates don't require reprinting.
Can I add online reservations to my restaurant website without coding?
Yes. Services like GloriaFood and Tock provide a free booking widget — a small embed code — that you paste directly into your website. No coding required. Most AI website builders accept these embeds natively.
How much does it cost to build a restaurant website?
A functional restaurant website — domain, digital menu, reservations, QR code — can cost as little as $0–$15 to build and $10–$20/month to host. The domain runs about $12/year. Some AI builders have free tiers; others charge a small monthly fee. Hiring a developer to build the same thing typically runs $2,000–$8,000 and takes weeks.
How do I update my digital menu without reprinting QR codes?
This is exactly why you use a dynamic QR code. A dynamic code points to a short redirect URL that you control. When your menu changes, you update the page — the QR code still scans perfectly because the redirect URL hasn't changed. Most free QR code generators, including QR Code Monkey, offer dynamic codes at no cost.
Do I need a separate app for table reservations?
No. For most small restaurants and cafés, a free service like GloriaFood gives you a booking form that sits directly on your website. Guests fill it in, you get an email notification, they get a confirmation. Simple, free, and no app required on either end.
Written by the 0xMinds Team — we test AI tools so you don't have to. Build a website with AI →
