Design Inspiration
The Best Restaurant Websites in Houston
March 24, 2022
Houston restaurants are using BentoBox to grow their brands and increase their revenue. Here are some of our favorite examples.
Across the country, restaurant operators are preparing to face the "new normal" — and Houston, TX, restaurants are no different.
To do this, many restaurants are creating best-in-class websites that meet the challenges — and seize the opportunities — of the current moment. They're investing in custom design to leave a strong, brand-first impression on future diners. They're setting up online commerce stores to diversify revenue and fight back against third-party commissions. And they're integrating websites with other technology to streamline workflows and operate with fewer, higher-paid staff members.
Want to see how that looks in action? We curated some of the best Houston websites built on BentoBox, the premier online marketing and commerce platform for restaurants. Check them out below.
Rosalie Italian Soul
Rosalie Italian Soul is a restaurant defined by comfort. Its menu has been described as "fine-dining Italian comfort food," and its interiors better resemble a mid-century home than a formal restaurant. Its website stays true to that brand by using soft, welcoming colors, along with whimsical quotes from chef/owner Chris Cosentino, a formerTop Chef Masters winner who opened Rosalie to honor his great grandmother. The website also uses a clean navigation bar with concise section names and a CTA button for reservations.
Hugo's
The first of several restaurants Hugo Ortega and Tracy Vaught opened together — and the first of several H-Town Restaurant Group examples on this list — Hugo's has been a Houston institution for nearly 20 years. The acclaimed restaurant is housed in a 1925 building and reveres authentic Mexican cooking because, as Ortega explains, "[it] has remained virtually unchanged by the outside world." Its website evokes this traditionalism with earthy colors and burlap textures, but it also has modern commerce features like direct online ordering and a merchandise store to drive revenue.
Finn Hall
Finn Hall is a European-inspired, Art Deco-designed food hall with eight independently operating restaurants. This means its website needs to serve two groups: first, the Finn Hall master brand and second, each of its occupants. It does this by dedicating the top of its homepage to the master brand, explaining the food hall concept and promoting venue-wide events like comedy shows through pop-up alerts. Further down the homepage or through the top navigation, diners can click to learn more about the individual restaurants — some of which, like Dish Society, also have BentoBox websites.
Urbe
The newest concept from H-Town Restaurant Group, Urbe opened in September 2021 after nearly a year of pandemic-inflicted delays. Unlike its sibling brands, it is a fast-casual restaurant dedicated to Mexican street foods like tacos, tortas and huarache. The first thing guests see on the website is a photo of colorful margaritas, which mirror Urbe's colorful logo and reinforce the brand's laid-back nature. The website also uses BentoBox online ordering to take direct orders and avoid third-party commission fees — revenue savings that add up with such a takeout-friendly menu.
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B52 Brewing Company
B52 Brewing Company brews an array of unique craft beer, which guests can enjoy in a three-acre shaded beer garden with lawn games and other activities. That's a pretty compelling sales pitch for most Houstonians, and its website does a good job hammering it home. On the beer side, custom photography shows the wide selection of home-brewed ales and lagers, while a dynamic menu page shows what's currently on tap. On the beer garden side, an embedded calendar shows guests which food trucks and activities are scheduled each day of the of the month.
Caracol
After meeting at Backstreets Cafe in the 1980s and opening Hugo's in 2002, Hugo Ortega and Tracy Vaught waited more than a decade to open Caracol near the Galleria in 2013. The menu is a "culinary tour along the Mexican coasts," where the light flavors of responsibly sourced seafood are the stars. Its website aligns with the traditional master brand of H-Town Restaurant Group, while also charting its own path and clearly defining itself as a seafood concept. And again, it uses BentoBox features like online ordering and online catering to drive low-commission revenue.
Mahesh's Kitchen
Mahesh's Kitchen opened in the summer of 2021, becoming the first brick-and-mortar Indian restaurant in Sugar Land Town Square. Although Texas had laxer dining restrictions than other states did, this timing meant a pair of first-time restaurant owners, Neelesh and Shubhangi Musale, quickly had to navigate the Delta and Omicron variants of COVID-19. In addition to introducing its brand and menu to potential diners, its website launched with BentoBox online ordering, which became an immediate source of off-premises revenue — something likely to continue beyond the pandemic.
Xochi
The final H-Town Restaurant Group example on this list, Xochi celebrates the culinary traditions of Oaxaca, a sprawling Mexican state known for its diverse geographic regions and rural villages. After mole, the cuisine most associated with Oaxaca may well be chocolate, which Oaxacans consume in various forms from morning to evening. Pastry chef Ruben Ortega, Hugo's brother, was the only Houston finalist for the 2022 James Beard Outstanding Pastry Chef Award — and the website makes his work prominent with both homepage visuals and event promotions dedicated to desserts.
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