How To Choose a Restaurant Website Template

Whether you’re thinking of redesigning your restaurant website or launching one for the first time, there are a lot of different options when it comes to choosing a template that will help your restaurant shine. To make it easier, we’ve outlined some key points to consider as you pick the best template for your restaurant website.  

Focus on Functionality

While it’s easy to first think of a template in terms of its visual layout, it's actually better to start by thinking about a template in terms of functionality. This means finding a template that includes best practices for restaurant websites, like mobile-responsiveness, reservations accessible on every page, easy to edit text-based menus, and forms for events and catering — things that all BentoBox websites are built with from the get-go. With that functionality already in the template, you can get your website up and running much faster.

Functionality also means making sure that the template you choose has been built for hospitality, because the needs of a restaurant website are going to be different from a photographer's or a pet shop, for example. Restaurant guests often come to a restaurant website looking for a phone number, business address, hours, menus, online ordering and reservations. By using a template that makes it easy for guests to find key information, you’ll be anticipating their needs online in the same way you do when they are physically in your restaurant.

Showcase Photography

With the functionality of your restaurant website already in place, you can focus your effort on communicating the experience of your restaurant itself. Look for a template that lets you show off your photography. It’s one of the best ways to communicate your brand online and convey a sense of your food and atmosphere. A good restaurant website template not only clearly displays beautiful, high-resolution photography, but it also optimizes those photos for the web, especially on mobile. In addition, it has tools built in to make it easy to update those photos as your restaurant changes throughout the year. 

Don’t Template Design

One important thing not  to template is the visual design of your website.  Instead, look for a template that meets your restaurant’s needs from a high-level and structural perspective, which BentoBox offers. This means choosing a restaurant website template that you can easily control, while still giving you the freedom to visually customize and design your website in a way that authentically matches your brand.  

Build to Last

Your restaurant website template should be set up to evolve with your website over time. Screen sizes for devices, SEO requirements, and web best practices are constantly evolving. Choose a template that will automatically accommodate these changes throughout the entire lifetime of your website. For example, you may not be ready to take catering orders the day you open, but when you are, having these features ready to be switched on will be a major help. You won’t need to repeatedly pay a third party to make adjustments for your websites or lose time waiting for those changes to be launched. Instead, as your business grows, you’ll have a restaurant website template that effortlessly grows with it.  

Want to learn more about how to get the best restaurant site template for your restaurant? Get in touch with us today!