Restaurant Websites: Menus, Reservations and Ordering Without Commissions

Most people look at your menu on a phone, standing on a sidewalk on Colorado Boulevard or in a parking lot off Harbor. A PDF makes them download a file, pinch to zoom and scroll sideways. An HTML menu loads as a page, reads at phone width and searches with the browser.

The second reason is machines. Google reads HTML text directly and it offers a menu link field on your Business Profile that should point to a real page. Schema.org defines a Menu type, with MenuSection and MenuItem, and the Restaurant type carries a hasMenu property that can hold the structured menu or its URL. Google’s LocalBusiness documentation lists menu and servesCuisine as recommended properties for food businesses. None of that works on a photo of a menu.

The third reason is you. When the price of a burrito changes, an HTML menu is a one-line edit. A PDF means reopening the design file, exporting, uploading and hoping the old one is not cached on someone’s phone.

• One page per menu: lunch, dinner, brunch, drinks, catering. Each with its own URL so it can be linked and cited.
• Every item with a price. Market price items say so.
• Section headings that match the printed menu so staff and guests use the same words.
• Dietary marks as text, not icons alone, so they can be read by a screen reader or a model.
• A last-updated date at the bottom.

Wrong hours are the most common restaurant complaint online, and they are the easiest to fix. Hours live in three places: the website, the Google Business Profile and the reservation or ordering system. They must match, and holiday hours go in before the holiday, not after the one-star review.

On the Business Profile, Google gives food businesses a menu link field under Business information, plus a menu editor where you can add sections, items, descriptions, prices and photos, or upload a menu photo or PDF. Google says changes take 24 to 48 hours to show on Maps and Search. Do both: link the live HTML menu, and load your top items in the editor so they appear inline.

The profile also carries reservation and ordering links. Point them at your own site, not at a third-party page, wherever the profile lets you. Google reports calls, direction requests, website clicks and bookings from the profile, so you can see each month how many diners the profile sends to the site and how many the site loses.

Reservation platforms charge two ways: a monthly subscription, and in some cases a fee per seated cover. The per-cover model is the one to read carefully, because it grows with your best nights. Resy states on its pricing page that it charges no per-cover fees on any plan, at $289 a month for its Platform plan and $459 a month for Platform 360, with Tock-powered Essential and Premium plans at the same monthly prices plus a 3 percent or 2 percent fee on prepayments. OpenTable and Yelp publish their own pricing pages; check whether a plan charges per cover before you sign.

A restaurant that does not need a full reservation system can still take bookings. A simple booking form or a Calendly-style embed on your own site costs nothing per cover. For a counter-service place in the Anaheim Packing District or a taqueria on Calle Cuatro, a waitlist and clear hours do more than a reservation book.

The new channel is inside the assistants. Yelp announced in August 2026 that ChatGPT users can book Yelp Reservations or join a Yelp Waitlist without leaving the chat, and ChatGPT already shows Yelp ratings, reviews and photos for local queries. A complete Yelp listing has become a booking channel, not just a review page.

• Fine dining or a full book every weekend: a reservation platform, chosen on total monthly cost including any cover fees.
• Neighborhood restaurant with some reservations: a booking widget on your site plus the Google profile reservation link.
• Counter service, bakery, food truck: hours, a waitlist if needed, and ordering. Skip the reservation system.

The delivery apps publish their rates. DoorDash lists three marketplace plans: Basic at 15 percent of the order subtotal on delivery, Plus at 25 percent and Premier at 30 percent, with pickup at 6 percent on all three. Uber Eats lists Lite at 20 percent, Plus at 25 percent and Premium at 30 percent on delivery, with pickup at 7 percent and a self-delivery option at 15 percent. Grubhub advertises marketing rates as low as 5 percent, with its delivery fleet starting at a further 10 percent, and notes that payment processing is not included.

First-party ordering is the same apps and the same POS vendors selling you the other side of the counter. DoorDash Online Ordering charges 0 percent commission on direct orders with standard payment processing. Uber Eats’ webshop charges a 2.5 percent order processing fee plus 29 cents per order. Toast states its online ordering has no commissions and no hidden fees, with flat delivery fees. Square’s published online processing rate is 3.3 percent plus 30 cents on its free plan and 2.9 percent plus 30 cents on paid plans.

The arithmetic is not subtle. On a delivery order the marketplace keeps 15 to 30 percent of the subtotal. On a first-party order the same customer pays a processing fee of a few percent. The apps are still worth being on for discovery, which is why the sane setup is both: stay listed, and route every repeat customer to your own ordering page from the website, the Google profile, the receipt and the bag.

Stay on the apps for the first order. Own the second one.

Catering is the highest-ticket order most restaurants take and the one most websites handle worst, with a phone number and a line that says ask us. A catering page with a menu, per-person pricing where you can publish it, minimums, lead time and delivery radius answers the office manager’s questions before she calls three competitors.

The form is short: date, headcount, delivery or pickup, address, and a box for the rest. It texts you on submission. Orange County offices along the 405 and Irvine’s planned business centers order lunch catering every week, and the ones who find a clear page with prices book without a phone call.

• A separate catering menu page with its own URL and its own prices.
• Minimum order, lead time and the cities you deliver to, stated plainly.
• A private events section with capacity, buyout minimums and photos of the room.
• Form submissions to your phone by text, and a same-day reply, because catering goes to whoever answers first.

Los Angeles restaurants live on corridors. Ventura Boulevard through the Valley, Melrose and Beverly across the middle, Figueroa through Highland Park, Gaffey down into San Pedro. Customers navigate by those names and search by them. A site that names its street and its neighborhood, Koreatown, Silver Lake, Eagle Rock, Mar Vista, ranks for the searches people actually type and reads as local to the person typing.

Long Beach clusters on strips: 2nd Street in Belmont Shore, Atlantic Avenue in Bixby Knolls, Retro Row on 4th, Pine Avenue downtown. Pasadena organizes around Colorado Boulevard from Old Pasadena through the Playhouse District, with the Rose Parade and Rose Bowl bending traffic and hours every winter. Glendale centers on Brand Boulevard and the Americana, with Honolulu Avenue serving Montrose like a small-town main street. Say where you are in those terms.

Orange County is thirty-four cities pretending to be one place. Anaheim’s resort district along Harbor and Katella feeds hotels and convention weeks, while the Packing District serves the neighborhoods a mile away and residents can tell which kind of restaurant you are. Santa Ana’s downtown runs on Calle Cuatro and much of the city prefers to do business in Spanish, so a bilingual menu is not a courtesy, it is the market. Irvine gathers commerce into planned centers along Culver, Jamboree and Alton, and its residents research before they show up.

Whatever the city, the same three facts must match on the site, the Google profile and Yelp: hours, address and phone. In LA, Yelp is the review source ChatGPT reaches for first, so keep that listing as current as the Google one.

A Sitesmith Standard build is $500 down and $49 a month to lease, with hosting, maintenance and edits included, or from $1,500 to own outright. It covers up to five pages, which for a restaurant is usually home, menu, order or reservations, catering and contact, plus the Google Business Profile, Search Console and LocalBusiness schema, a contact form that texts your phone, a booking embed and live Google reviews on the page. Your domain is registered to you either way.

Signature is $1,500 down and $99 a month, or from $2,500 to own, and adds online payments and custom features scoped to the restaurant, such as an ordering flow or a promo system. Care plans on an owned site are $25, $49 or $99 a month, first month included.

The site is built before we meet. You see the menu on the page with your name on it, change what is wrong on the call, and go live the same day you approve it.