A restaurant website with the menu as text, not a PDF

What diners look for

The menu comes first. In an OpenTable survey of 6,000 US diners, 86% said they regularly check menus online before eating out (OpenTable, 2015); it's an old number, but nothing suggests the habit got weaker. Then:

• Prices, and the kind of place you are.
• Opening hours tonight, including the kitchen's last orders and holiday hours.
• Reservations, or a clear "walk-ins only".
• Dietary and allergen information: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and how to ask about allergens.
• Photos of your real food and room, where you are, and whether there's space for groups.

Why the menu should be text, not a PDF or a photo

A PDF menu is small on a phone, needs pinching and zooming, downloads slowly on mobile data, and quietly goes out of date. The Nielsen Norman Group, which studies how people use websites, has warned about PDFs on the web for 20 years and still calls them unfit for reading on screens (NN/g, 2020). A menu written on the page is readable on any phone, searchable by Google, and changed in seconds. Offer the PDF as a download if you like, but not as the only menu.

Allergens: what the rules ask for

• EU: Regulation 1169/2011 requires allergen information for food that isn't prepacked, too. If people can order online, the allergen information must be available before they pay, at no extra cost, and again on delivery (European Commission).
• UK: the Food Standards Agency's 2025 guidance recommends written allergen information plus a conversation, and information both when ordering and on delivery for online sales (FSA).

A practical minimum for your website: allergy labels on dishes, and one clear sentence on how to get full allergen information. This is general information, not legal advice; check your local rules.

The sections a restaurant website needs

1. Top of the page: cuisine, neighbourhood, today's hours, and Reserve, Call and Directions.
2. The menu as text: sections, dishes, short descriptions, prices, dietary labels.
3. Allergen note.
4. Reservations or ordering (a link to your provider, or a request form).
5. Hours (with holiday hours) and a map.
6. Your story, the chef, photos.
7. Groups, private dining and events, if you do them.

Mistakes we see on restaurant websites

• Website hours that don't match Google's, especially around holidays.
• Old prices on the online menu.
• Autoplay videos and heavy sliders that make the page slow on a phone.
• A reservation link pointing to a widget that no longer works.

Getting found locally

In Google Business Profile, pick the most specific cuisine category Google offers ("Italian restaurant" rather than "Restaurant"), use its menu editor, and point the profile's menu link to your menu page. In structured data a restaurant is a Restaurant with its cuisine and menu; Ginta writes it from the details you gave.

How it works with Ginta

Describe the restaurant, answer the questions, and it's online about a minute later. Then: "add our menu" and paste it in. Ginta's Menu keeps dishes, prices, sizes and allergy labels in one place you can change yourself: mark a dish sold out in seconds, change a price without the AI, print it. Post "Closed 24–26 December" as an announcement that disappears by itself, and run tasting nights with Events (places, waiting list, reminder the day before) on a paid plan.