There’s a particular kind of frustration that comes with trying to find somewhere to eat.
You find a local restaurant. The food looks great. Someone has posted a photo of a burger that immediately changes your dinner plans. You’re interested.
Now you just want to see the menu.
Twenty minutes later, you’re zooming into a crooked photo uploaded to Google Maps three years ago, trying to work out whether the pasta is $24 or $34, and whether they even serve it anymore.
Please. We’re hungry.
The menu is a pretty important part
For a café or restaurant, the menu is one of the most useful things someone can find online. It helps them decide whether the food suits their group, whether there are suitable dietary options and roughly what they’re going to spend.
It shouldn’t take a tour through Facebook, Instagram highlights and a stranger’s camera roll to find it.
And yet, sometimes the only available menu is a customer photo with someone’s thumb covering the sides. Other times, the “Menu” button leads to an expired link, a delivery platform or a post announcing Mother’s Day lunch from several Mother’s Days ago.
None of this tells a potential customer what they can order today.
Social media has its place
Instagram is a great place to show off the food, introduce the team and give people a feel for the venue. Keep posting the coffee pours and the fresh pastries. They’re doing their job.
But someone checking your menu shouldn’t need to scroll through forty posts to find a price.
The same goes for opening hours, booking details and your address. These are practical questions people want answered before they leave home. Give that information a clear, reliable home, then use your social profiles and business listings to point people towards it.
A simple website can do that without becoming another complicated thing to manage.
It doesn’t need to be a massive website
A local café probably doesn’t need twelve pages, a cinematic opening sequence and a paragraph about its commitment to redefining the breakfast experience.
A clear page with the current menu, opening hours, location, contact details and a few good photos is a useful start. Add a booking or ordering link if you use one.
Make the menu comfortable to read on a phone. Nobody should need to download a huge file and repeatedly pinch the screen just to investigate the eggs Benedict.
Where practical, put the menu directly on the page as readable text. If you also provide a PDF, make sure it’s current, clearly labelled and easy to open.
Give people a straightforward way to ask about dietary requirements rather than leaving them to guess from an old photo.
Someone needs to keep it current
Having a website is only helpful if the information on it still reflects the business.
When the menu changes, updating the website should be part of the same process as printing the new copies. When holiday trading hours are confirmed, update those too.
Decide who is responsible and make sure they know how to make changes or request them. A website that nobody can access will eventually become another outdated listing.
This doesn’t need to involve a weekly meeting. It just needs to be somebody’s job.
Let people get to the good part
Running a hospitality business already involves enough moving parts. Your website should help answer the routine questions so customers can get on with choosing what they want.
At Audex Media, simple websites start from $500. We can help give your menu and venue details a proper home, with a layout that works on mobile and a clear plan for keeping things updated.
Your food deserves better than a blurry photo from 2023.
And your customers deserve to know what’s for lunch.
