53% of diners visit a restaurant's website before deciding where to eat, according to a 2024 survey by MGH. They're looking for the menu, the hours, and the vibe. If your website takes 6 seconds to load, 40% of them leave. If your menu is a PDF that doesn't display on mobile, they go somewhere else. If they can't find your address in 3 seconds, you lost a customer.
Your website is your most important marketing asset. It's the one place online that you control completely. Google My Business can change their algorithm. Yelp can hide your reviews behind a paywall. Instagram can deprioritize your posts. Your website is yours.
I've built restaurant websites on all three major platforms. I've also watched restaurant owners try to build their own and fail in predictable ways. Here's what works and what doesn't.
The Short Answer
If you want the best-looking website with the least effort, use Squarespace. The restaurant templates are genuinely good. The menu display is clean. The online ordering integration with Square and Toast works out of the box. It costs $16-$36/month. You can build a professional restaurant website in an afternoon.
If you need maximum flexibility and plan to grow, use WordPress. It powers 43% of all websites. The plugin ecosystem means you can add any feature you can think of. It costs $3-$45/month for hosting plus whatever you spend on plugins and themes. The learning curve is steeper but the ceiling is higher.
If you want the easiest possible setup and don't care about advanced features, use Wix. The drag-and-drop editor is the most intuitive. The restaurant-specific templates are decent. It costs $17-$36/month. You'll have a website live in 2-3 hours.
| Feature | Squarespace | WordPress | Wix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Cost | $16-$49/month | $3-$45/month (hosting) + plugins | $17-$159/month |
| Best For | Independent restaurants that want a polished site without hiring a designer | Restaurants investing in content marketing or needing custom functionality | First-time builders who want a site live fast |
| Ease of Use | Good. Template-based, limited customization. Menu blocks built for restaurants. | Steeper learning curve. Full control but more technical. | Easiest. Drag-and-drop editor, AI website builder available. |
| Restaurant Features | Menu blocks, online ordering (Square/Toast), reservations | Plugins for everything: ordering, reservations, loyalty, events | App market with restaurant-specific add-ons |
| SEO Capability | Solid. Clean URLs, auto sitemaps, meta tags. | Best of any platform. Yoast/Rank Math for granular control. | Improved but still weaker than Squarespace and WordPress. |
| Online Ordering | Built-in via Square, Toast, Stripe (0-3% fee) | Via plugins (WooCommerce, etc.) | Built-in on Core plan ($29/month) |
| Mobile Experience | Responsive templates, no separate mobile editor | Depends on theme; most are responsive | Separate mobile editor, must optimize both |
What a Restaurant Website Actually Needs
Most restaurant websites fail at the basics. Here's what your website needs to do:
Show the menu. Not a PDF. Not an image. Actual text on the page. PDFs don't display properly on mobile. Images can't be read by screen readers. Text on the page loads fast, displays on any device, and Google can index it. Your menu is your most important content. Make it easy to find and easy to read. If you're still figuring out how to price your menu items profitably, our food cost calculator can help you nail down the numbers before you publish.
Show the hours and location. On the homepage. Above the fold. Don't make people click to a "Contact" page to find out if you're open. Put your hours, address, and phone number where people can see them immediately.
Accept online orders. 60% of consumers order delivery or takeout at least once a week, according to the National Restaurant Association's 2024 State of the Industry report (restaurant.org). If your website doesn't have an "Order Online" button, you're sending customers to DoorDash and Uber Eats, where they'll pay 15-30% commission fees and might choose a competitor instead.
Accept reservations. If you're full-service, put a "Reserve a Table" button next to the "Order Online" button. Integrate with OpenTable, Resy, or SevenRooms. Don't make people call to make a reservation. 40% of reservations are made outside business hours.
Load fast. Restaurant websites are image-heavy. Food photos, interior shots, ambiance images. If these images aren't optimized, your site loads in 8 seconds and people leave. Compress your images. Use lazy loading. Test your site speed with Google PageSpeed Insights. Google uses Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, and CLS) as ranking factors, so a slow site doesn't just lose visitors. It loses search rankings too.
Work on mobile. 60-70% of restaurant website traffic comes from phones. People are looking you up while they're walking down the street deciding where to eat. If your site doesn't work on mobile, you don't have a website.
Squarespace: Best Looking, Least Effort
Squarespace is the best choice for most independent restaurants. The templates are designed by professionals. The menu blocks are purpose-built for restaurants. The online ordering integration is straightforward.
Pricing: Personal at $16/month (no commerce features). Business at $23/month (adds online ordering with 3% transaction fee). Commerce Basic at $27/month (no transaction fees on orders). Commerce Advanced at $49/month (adds abandoned cart recovery and advanced shipping).
For a restaurant, you want at least Business. The online ordering integration is the whole point. The 3% transaction fee on the Business plan is cheaper than DoorDash's 15-30%.
What it does well: The templates. Squarespace's restaurant templates look like they were designed by someone who's eaten at restaurants. The typography is good. The spacing is right. The photo layouts make food look appetizing. The menu blocks let you create formatted menus with item names, descriptions, and prices. You can organize by section (appetizers, entrees, desserts) and add dietary labels. The online ordering integration works with Square, Toast, and Stripe. Customers can order directly from your menu page. The SEO tools are solid. Squarespace generates clean URLs, sitemaps, and meta tags automatically.
Where it falls short: Customization is limited. You can change colors, fonts, and layouts within the template, but you can't build custom functionality. If you want a loyalty program integrated into your website, you can't build it on Squarespace. The blogging features are basic. If content marketing is part of your strategy, WordPress is better. The pricing adds up. $23/month plus a 3% transaction fee on orders means a restaurant doing $5,000/month in online orders pays $150 in transaction fees on top of the subscription.
Who should use it: Independent restaurants that want a professional website without hiring a designer. Restaurants that need online ordering but don't want to pay DoorDash commissions. Single-location restaurants with straightforward needs.
WordPress: Maximum Flexibility
WordPress is the most powerful option but requires more effort. If you're willing to learn or hire someone, WordPress can do anything.
Pricing: Hosting at $3-$45/month (SiteGround, Bluehost, or WP Engine). Domain at $10-$15/year. Theme at $0-$79 one-time. Plugins at $0-$200/year. Total: $50-$350/year for a basic restaurant website.
What it does well: Flexibility. WordPress can do anything. Online ordering, reservations, loyalty programs, email marketing, event calendars, gift cards. If a feature exists, there's a plugin for it. The SEO capabilities are the best of any platform. With Yoast SEO or Rank Math, you have granular control over every SEO element. If you're serious about ranking on Google, check out our restaurant SEO guide for a full breakdown of what to optimize. The content management is excellent. If you're blogging regularly (which you should be), WordPress is the best platform for it. You own everything. Your content, your data, your design. No platform can take it away or change the rules.
Where it falls short: The learning curve. WordPress takes time to learn. The dashboard has a lot of options. Installing and configuring plugins requires some technical comfort. Maintenance is ongoing. You need to update WordPress, themes, and plugins regularly. Security is your responsibility. If you don't update, you get hacked. Performance requires optimization. A default WordPress install with a heavy theme and 15 plugins loads slowly. You need caching, image optimization, and a good hosting provider to get fast load times.
Who should use it: Restaurants that plan to invest in content marketing. Multi-location groups that need custom functionality. Restaurants that want full control over their website and data. Anyone willing to spend a few hours learning or a few hundred dollars hiring.
Wix: Easiest Setup
📬 Get More Customers. Get More Profit.
Join 2,400+ restaurant owners getting actionable tips every Friday. One email. One insight. No spam.
Wix is the easiest platform to use. The drag-and-drop editor lets you place anything anywhere. If you've never built a website before, Wix is the gentlest introduction.
Pricing: Light at $17/month (basic website, no online ordering). Core at $29/month (adds online ordering and bookings). Business at $36/month (adds advanced ecommerce). Business Elite at $159/month (adds advanced analytics and priority support).
What it does well: The editor. Wix's drag-and-drop editor is the most intuitive website builder I've used. You can place text, images, and buttons anywhere on the page. No grid restrictions. The restaurant templates are decent. They're not as polished as Squarespace's but they're functional. The app market has restaurant-specific apps for online ordering, reservations, and menu management. The AI website builder (Wix ADI) can generate a basic restaurant website from your business information in about 10 minutes. It won't be great, but it'll be live.
Where it falls short: You can't switch templates after publishing. This is Wix's biggest limitation. If you build your site on one template and decide you want a different design, you have to rebuild from scratch. The SEO capabilities are weaker than Squarespace and WordPress. Wix has improved its SEO tools but they're still not as good. The mobile editor is separate from the desktop editor. Changes you make on desktop don't automatically translate to mobile. You have to optimize both separately. The pricing is confusing. The plan names change. The features shuffle between tiers. Read the feature list carefully before you commit.
Who should use it: First-time website builders who want the easiest possible experience. Restaurants that need a basic website fast. Operations where the owner is building the site themselves with no technical background.
The Online Ordering Question
Every restaurant website needs online ordering. The question is how to implement it. For a deeper look at the options, including first-party ordering systems, read our restaurant online ordering guide.
Direct integration (Squarespace/Wix): Orders come through your website. You pay the platform's transaction fee (0-3%). You control the experience. The downside: you're responsible for managing orders, updating the menu, and handling technical issues.
Third-party integration (Toast/ChowNow/GloriaFood): Orders go through a third-party ordering system embedded on your site. You pay a monthly fee ($49-$199/month) plus processing. The upside: the ordering system is purpose-built for restaurants. The downside: another monthly subscription.
Marketplace links (DoorDash/Uber Eats): You link to your DoorDash or Uber Eats page from your website. You pay 15-30% commission. The upside: zero setup. The downside: you're paying the highest commissions in the industry and sending customers to a platform where they can order from your competitors.
For most independent restaurants, direct integration through Squarespace or Wix is the best balance of cost and control. A 3% transaction fee on $5,000/month in online orders is $150. DoorDash at 20% is $1,000. The $850 difference is real money.
What Most Restaurant Websites Get Wrong
I've looked at hundreds of restaurant websites. Here are the most common mistakes:
The menu is a PDF. PDFs are the worst way to display a menu online. They load slowly. They don't resize for mobile. Google can't read them. Screen readers can't read them. Put your menu on the page as text.
Autoplaying music or video. Nobody wants your website to make noise. Ever. Under any circumstances.
The address isn't on the homepage. Put your address, hours, and phone number on the homepage. Above the fold. In text, not an image.
No online ordering button. If I'm on your website and I want to order food, I should be able to do it in one click. If I have to search for how to order, I'm leaving.
Slow load times. Restaurant websites are image-heavy. If your images aren't compressed, your site loads in 8 seconds. Google's research on page speed shows that 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load. Compress your images. Use a CDN. Test your speed.
Outdated information. Holiday hours from 3 years ago. A menu with items you discontinued. A "Now Hiring" banner from last summer. If your website looks abandoned, customers assume your restaurant is too.
FAQ
How much does a professional restaurant website cost?
DIY on Squarespace or Wix: $200-$600/year including subscription, domain, and stock photos. Hiring a freelancer: $1,500-$5,000 one-time plus $200-$600/year ongoing. Hiring an agency: $5,000-$15,000 one-time plus $500-$1,500/year ongoing.
Should I hire someone or build it myself?
If you have an afternoon to spare and your needs are straightforward, build it yourself on Squarespace. If you need custom functionality or you want a truly unique design, hire someone. Don't hire an agency unless you're a multi-location group with complex needs.
How long does it take to build a restaurant website?
DIY on Squarespace: 3-6 hours. DIY on WordPress: 8-20 hours. Hiring a freelancer: 2-4 weeks. Hiring an agency: 4-8 weeks.
Do I need a website if I have a Facebook page and Google My Business listing?
Yes. Facebook and Google control those platforms. They can change the rules, hide your content, or shut down your page. Your website is the one online presence you control completely. It's also the only place where you can accept online orders without paying marketplace commissions. That said, your social media presence still matters for driving traffic. See our restaurant social media strategy guide for how to make Facebook and Instagram work alongside your website.
Next steps: Your website is live. Now you need people to find it. Read our restaurant SEO guide to learn how to rank on Google, or check out our restaurant marketing plan for a full strategy that ties everything together.
Crunch the numbers first. Use our break-even calculator to know how many orders you need to cover your costs before you commit to a platform.