Here's the good news. Building a restaurant website is simpler than it looks, and you don't need to be technical to do it right.
This guide walks you through the whole thing, step by step. You'll learn how to create a restaurant website from scratch, which pages to include, and how to turn a first-time visitor into a regular who orders straight from you. This article was last updated on 06/15/2016.
Why Your Restaurant Needs a Website (Not Just a Marketplace Store Page )
You're already taking orders on DoorDash Marketplace. So why build a restaurant website on top of that?
Because the two do different jobs. Marketplace handles discovery. It puts your menu in front of people ready to order. A 2026 DoorDash Restaurant Industry Trends Report found 51% of consumers discover restaurants through Google Search, and 37% through delivery apps. Both channels send you customers you'd never have reached on your own.
Discovery is the first step. Before someone decides where to eat, they check you out. 77% of diners visit a restaurant's website first, according to an MGH survey via Restaurant Dive. When a potential customer lands on your homepage, they see your food, your hours, and an easy way to order. That's how you turn a curious visitor into a guest.
With a strong restaurant website, every direct order brings in an email address, an order history, and a chance to build loyalty. Those details belong to you, and they're how you turn one-time visitors into regulars.
Picture the two working together. Marketplace brings new customers to your door, and your restaurant website keeps them coming back.
How to Create a Restaurant Website in 5 Steps
Here's the part you came for: a clear, do-it-today checklist. Five steps, in order, from picking your web address to taking your first direct order. No code, no jargon, no rabbit holes.
Step 1: Pick a Domain Name That's Easy to Find
Your domain name is your restaurant's web address. It's the first thing people type to find you, so make it easy. For this step, we’re going to use the following website example: tonyspizza.com.
These three rules will keep you streamlined:
Make it short. Shorter addresses are easier to remember and quicker to type on a phone.
Match your restaurant name. If your spot is called Ramen Garden, your domain should say so.
Use .com if you can. People expect it. A .com still reads as trustworthy to most diners.
Registration runs about $12 to $20 a year for a standard domain (.com, .net, or .org) through a registrar like GoDaddy or Namecheap. The first year is often discounted, and renewals return to the standard rate. Most major registrars now include privacy protection for free, but check the auto-renewal and transfer fees to be clear on costs before you commit.
If a domain like ramengarden.com is already taken, add your city. ramengardennyc.com works just as well, if not better. The city name gives you a small boost in local search, the way a search engine decides which restaurants to show people nearby. That's your first piece of SEO (search engine optimization), which helps Google choose which sites to rank for a search.
One last thing: Grab the matching handle on social media if possible, to make it easier for customers to find and trust you.
Step 2: Choose the Right Website Builder for Restaurants
A website builder lets you build your site by dragging and clicking, no coding skills needed. Many restaurant owners start with a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, which gives you a simple dashboard for building pages and updating them whenever something changes.
A restaurant-specific platform works differently. The restaurant functionality comes built in, with everything from the online menu to ordering to mobile design ready to use on day one. Think of it as an all-in-one option: you’ve got access to the features a restaurant needs, without needing to hunt for the right plugin.
So how do you choose? Two quick questions:
Want a simple presence page with your hours, location, and menu? A general website builder does the job.
Want to take orders straight from your own site? You need a platform built for restaurants.
DoorDash Commerce Platform is a great option if you want to take direct orders. Its branded website runs on the same technology that powers DoorDash Marketplace: mobile-first by default. Your restaurant menu syncs automatically from your Marketplace listing, so if you update it once, every page will immediately reflect the change.
DoorDash also handles the technical heavy lifting, like hosting, security, menu sync, and mobile optimization, removing most maintenance headaches.
Step 3: Design the Pages That Drive Visits and Orders
Most restaurant websites need just four pages to answer every question a visitor might have.
Homepage. This is your first impression, and a visitor should know what you serve and how to order within seconds.
Show your restaurant name, one mouth-watering food photo, your hours, and your location. Put a clear "Order Now" or "Book a Table" button up top, visible before anyone scrolls. A short row of customer testimonials near the top is a quick and easy way to build trust.
Menu page. This is the page people visit most, so treat it with care. Never use a PDF. PDFs load badly on phones, and Google can't read them, so potential diners have no way to search your dishes.
Build an HTML menu page instead (a web page Google can read and index), with photos and short descriptions that make each dish easy to visualize.
Contact page. Make it effortless to reach you. List your hours, address, phone number, and an embedded Google Map. Add links to the delivery apps you're on so customers can order the way they prefer.
About page. Optional, but effective. Share your story and the people behind the food. It builds a connection with first-time visitors and sets you apart from your competitors.
Step 4: Make It Work Perfectly on Mobile
Most people will find you on their phone when they're hungry, and they want to order in a few taps. The 2026 DoorDash Restaurant Industry Trends Report revealed 64% of consumers almost always order delivery on mobile. If your site is hard to use on a phone, those buyers will likely give up and order somewhere else.
A mobile-optimized site looks like this:
Your menu reads clearly with no pinching or zooming.
Your "Order Now" button is big enough to tap with a thumb.
Your pages load in under three seconds.
Nothing important slides off the edge of the screen.
Most website builders provide mobile-responsive templates, so the layout adjusts to fit any screen of any size. Despite that claim, it’s a best practice to pull up your own site on your phone before you publish. Tap every button, read the menu, and place a test order. If anything feels clunky to you, it'll feel clunky to your customers.
Step 5: Add Online Ordering Before You Launch
Every visit to your site is a chance to sell. Set up online ordering before launch day, so your very first visitor can buy.
Where do third-party platforms fit in? DoorDash Marketplace charges a commission on each order, a worthwhile trade: it puts your restaurant in front of hungry customers who are ready to buy and might never have found you otherwise.
Once you've won those customers over, offer direct ordering on your own site so they can come back in one click. You keep more of what you earn on every repeat order, plus you'll own that customer's contact information, which opens the door to email marketing and loyalty.
A good online ordering system invites people to buy straight from your site, no extra app required. Online Ordering from DoorDash Commerce Platform makes it easy to set up: it's commission-free, runs on DoorDash technology, and goes live within hours using your existing Marketplace menu.
Adding Online Ordering can increase sales by up to 8% of current Marketplace sales based on internal DoorDash data from Jan 2025 through May 2025. Optimizing your website with a pop-up prompt and a floating "Order Now" button can increase web sales by up to 30%, based on internal DoorDash data from Jan 2022 through Dec 2023.
How to Design a Restaurant Website People Use
Steps one through five give you a working site. The way the site is designed defines whether potential customers will use it. This section covers look and feel: the visual choices that make or break a potential guest experience.
The Pages Every Restaurant Website Needs
You were introduced to the four core pages in Step 3: homepage, menu, contact, and about. Now look at them through a design lens, considering the following principles:
Lead with food photography, not your logo. People order with their eyes. Sharp, high-quality photos of your dishes do far more selling than any logo.
Warm colors feed the appetite. Reds, oranges, and yellows make food look inviting. Cool blues don't. Lean warm wherever you can.
Keep it consistent. Use the same fonts, colors, and logo placement on every page. That consistency signals a serious operation to a first-time visitor.
Remember, you want to create a restaurant website that sells, and visuals are one of the biggest drivers.
What Makes a Good Restaurant Website? Speed, Simplicity, and One Clear Action
You don't have long to make an impression. The average user spends just 15 seconds on a website before deciding whether to stay. A few habits keep them on yours.
Fast load time. Aim for under three seconds. Compress your images and skip the heavy homepage videos that drag your load time.
Easy navigation. A customer should reach your menu or your ordering button in two taps, never more.
One clear call-to-action. A call-to-action, or CTA, is the button that tells visitors what to do next, like "Order Now". Give every page one obvious next step.
Mobile-first. Design for phones first, then scale up for desktop.
How to Make a Good Restaurant Website Show Up on Google
A great-looking site does you no good if no one finds it. That's where SEO comes in. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the work you do to help your website show up when people search Google for a place to eat.
None of this requires technical know-how. Start with the three basics below.
Set up your Google Business Profile. Your Google Business Profile, or GBP, is your restaurant's free listing in Google Maps and local search. It's the single most valuable free step you can take. Your GBP and your website work as a team: the profile helps people discover you, and the website turns that interest into an order.
Keep your NAP consistent. NAP stands for name, address, and phone number. These three details should read exactly the same on your website, your GBP, Yelp, and every directory you appear in. When they don't match, Google has less confidence in your listing, and your rankings slip.
Put keywords where they count. First, figure out your keywords. Picture what a customer types into Google to find a restaurant like yours, usually a cuisine and a location, like "pizza downtown Denver". Then place those words where Google reads first: your page title, your meta description (the short blurb under your restaurant name in search results), and your homepage copy.
Remember, you want to sound human, not keyword-stuffed. Work the keywords in only where they read naturally.
SevenRooms’ 2023 Dining Discovery Report found an impressive 33% of diners discover restaurants through Google Search. For the full breakdown of how restaurants climb the rankings, our SEO for Restaurants in 2026 guide covers everything from keywords to reviews.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Building a Restaurant Website
A few common slip-ups cost restaurant owners time, money, and orders. Learn them now and save yourself the trouble later.
Using a PDF menu. As mentioned in Step 3, avoid using a PDF menu. It bears repeating that PDFs load slowly on phones, Google can't read them, and they force customers to download a file before they can see what you serve. Build an HTML menu page instead. It loads quickly, shows up in search, and reads cleanly on any screen.
Launching without a way to order. A site with no ordering option is a waste of everyone’s time. If you don’t have direct order capabilities yet, install an "Order on DoorDash" button to capture the sale any way you can.
Letting the site fall out of date. Wrong hours, an old menu, a phone number that no longer rings: every one of these costs you customers. Update your site the moment anything changes at the restaurant, from a new dish to a holiday closure.
Your Restaurant Website Is Just the Start
If you're already pulling in orders through DoorDash Marketplace, a website is your next move.
DoorDash Commerce Platform provides what you need in one place: a branded website and commission-free Online Ordering, built on the same technology that runs DoorDash Marketplace. Your menu is already there. Setup takes just a few hours. And every direct order comes with customer data that’s yours to keep.
Your Marketplace momentum is already working for you. Put it to work building something you own.
Launch Your Restaurant Website with DoorDash Commerce Platform
