Best Restaurant Website Builders | How to Create a Restaurant Website for Free

As a restaurant owner, you will sooner or later realize the importance of starting a website. This is a kind of a visiting card for your business needed to present it to the public, attract more clients, generate profit and finally make it stand out from the crowd.

The process of restaurant website creation seems simple until… you actually start thinking about its nuances. One of the most burning issues you’ll have to solve is your business development and promotion.

The best solution is to set up a project that will encompass functionality and attractive design. This can be a daunting and time-taking task, considering the amount of competitors.

If this is a challenge for you, the article will help you figure out the details of the restaurant website creation process, the steps to undertake to make it a success and the most effective ways of further project promotion.

Even if you are not a web design pro (and you don’t have to be that person), website builders will help you create and manage a full-featured restaurant website with almost no hassle at all. Let’s have a look at the most popular and functional web building tools you can use for this purpose now.

Best Restaurant Website Builders

#1.SITE123 – Simple Website Builder for Restaurants

SITE123 – is a simple website builder for restaurants, which does not require any coding skills to get started with your project.

What Restaurant Website You Can Create with SITE123

When using SITE123, you can set up a restaurant website that comes with:

• online menu;
• online reservation/pickup/delivery;
• gallery;
• contact forms;
• blog;
• client testimonials.

Free Restaurant Website with SITE123 – What You Get

SITE123 offers quite an extensive range of features and tools to set up a restaurant website. There is a separate category of Restaurant and Food designs in its template collection. All of them are free, responsive and completely customizable.

The website builder also comes with multilingual support that allows creating projects in different language versions, integrated App Market with a variety of restaurant-related extensions, free form builder to create and integrate online forms.

Additionally, the system offers a Logo Maker and opportunity for social media integration. This is a great way to promote your project and to make it stand out from the crowd.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Paid Website with SITE123?

Along with the free plan, SITE123 makes it possible to upgrade to the premium subscription. The cheapest of them costs $10.80 per month. It offers domain name connection with a free domain for 1 year, absence of the software floating tag, 10GB of disk storage space and other features needed for successful restaurant website creation.

#2.Gator – Restaurant Website Builder with Hosting

Gator – is a restaurant website builder with hosting, which makes it possible to create, manage and host projects without looking for third-party services.

What Restaurant Website You Can Create with Gator

Choosing Gator website builder for your restaurant website means that you will be able to add:

• online menu;
• gallery;
• contact forms;
• client testimonials.

Free Restaurant Website with Gator – What You Get

Gator is one of the simplest no code website builders you can use to set up a restaurant website. The major highlight of the system is that it comes as a part of the HostGator package. This means that you get a website builder and a hosting provider at a time.

The software lets you select one of its customizable and responsive designs available in the collection for free. Due to the integrated eCommerce platform, you have an opportunity to offer dishes/products/services for sale.

If you are looking for extra integrations to boost your restaurant website performance, you will find multiple options in the App Market. The widgets are free and you can pick those that work well for client interaction, eCommerce, blogging, social media promotion and other restaurant-related purposes.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Paid Website with Gator?

Gator does not have a completely free plan or trial. However, it allows creating restaurant websites, using one of its premium hosting packages. The website builder comes as a part of them. The price starts at $3.84 per month.

#3. Squarespace – Contemporary Restaurant Website Builder

Squarespace – is a contemporary restaurant website builder, which covers a broad variety of users’ needs and allows launching projects with an abundance of features and services available in stock.

What Restaurant Website You Can Create with Squarespace

The software lets you set up restaurant websites that come with multiple niche-related features:

• OpenTable reservations;
• online menu;
• event calendar;
• blog;
• gallery;
• customer reviews/testimonials.

Free Restaurant Website with Squarespace – What You Get

The system is a great pick for entrepreneurs, who are just about to start their restaurant business and wish to go online. It boasts one of the most award-winning industry templates that are responsive and fully-customizable to come up to your requirements.

The website builder lets you reach and grow your customer base via the use of comprehensive marketing tools. These include social marketing features, email marketing campaigns etc.

Due to the built-in eCommerce engine, Squarespace lets you add a fully-integrated web store to your restaurant website to sell gift items, merchandise, special courses, popular menu foods etc. You’ll be able to use and manage inventory tools, accept and process orders, send emails and complete other steps.

Additionally, Squarespace provides you with the entire feature set needed to start and manage restaurant websites. These include impressive menus, event calendars, Logo Maker, OpenTable reservations, image editing tools, multilingual support etc.

As far as Squarespace is also known for its portfolio-building focus, it comes with an amazing assortment of image editing tools and options. This allows creating stunning restaurant menus with high-res photos of dishes you serve. This is one of the features users frequently find attractive about restaurant websites.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Paid Website with Squarespace?

Squarespace doesn’t have a completely free plan. Instead, there is a free trial that extends for 14 days. The most affordable Personal Plan currently costs $12 per month. It implies an opportunity for free custom domain name connection for 1 year, SSL Certificate, unlimited bandwidth, 30 minutes of video storage space and other advantages.

#4. WordPress+Bluehost – Best CMS+Hosting for a Restaurant Website

WordPress + Bluehost – is the best CMS+hosting bundle to launch a restaurant website. As a free CMS, WordPress allows creating a full-featured project that can further be hosted with one of Bluehost plans.

What Restaurant Website You Can Create with WordPress+Bluehost

The software allows setting up powerful restaurant websites with distinctive integrated niche-related functionality, including:

• online menu;
• geographic location;
• working hours;
• blog;
• live chat;
• customer testimonials;
• gallery;
• contact/feedback form;
• online reservations/delivery.

Free Restaurant Website with WordPress+Bluehost – What You Get

WordPress makes it possible to start, manage and update contemporary restaurant/cafe websites, providing convenience and exceptional integration options.

The CMS comes with built-in and integrable templates that work great for the development of restaurant websites. You can choose from free and paid themes, with the latter being designed by third-party experts.

Among a variety of integrable plugins you can choose for your restaurant website, table reservation plugins (Open Table Widget, ReDi Restaurant Reservation, WooCommerce Product Table, Restaurant Reservations, ResRes, Restaurant Manager, Booking System PRO etc.) should be the first to mention. They make it possible for your clients to book tables directly at the website, which saves their effort and time.

With WordPress, you have a perfect opportunity to create impressive and visually-appealing menus via plugin installation. Some of them are as follows: Responsive Menu, Hero Menu, Floating Menu Pro, UberMenu, Max Mega Menu, Superfly, etc.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Paid Website with WordPress+Bluehost?

WordPress is a free CMS, which can be easily downloaded and installed. To enhance the functionality of the system and boost your restaurant website performance, though, you won’t go without integration of extra plugins, templates and add-ons.

When it comes to restaurant website hosting, Bluehost is the best solution. They ensure improved page load time, enhanced flexibility, advanced safety and functionality along with affordability.

There are also multiple apps you can choose for your restaurant website in the integrated marketplace. The cheapest Bluehost subscription currently costs $2.95 per month.

#5.Wix – Powerful All-In-One Restaurant Website Builder

Wix – is a powerful all-in-one restaurant website builder, which works great for web design pros and newbies, who have a clear understanding of how their restaurant websites should look like and what features they should encompass.

What Restaurant Website You Can Create with Wix

The service has everything you need to bring your web design ideas to life and start a feature-rich restaurant website, namely:

• online menu;
• online orders;
• dish delivery;
• client reviews;
• gallery;
• online forms;
• callback order;
• live chat;
• news feed;
• blog;
• online events/schedules.

Free Restaurant Website with Wix – What You Get

Wix offers a special category of mobile-optimized restaurant and cafe templates, where you can pick and customize the one, which will present your restaurant in the most favorable light.

It also allows adding and managing your own menu directly at the website, specifying the prices and selecting the design that works best for your restaurant website style.

The highlight of the website builder is its Wix Restaurants app. It enables your clients to place their orders, organize the delivery and make the payments (cash or credit cards) online with no commission rates. This is also the place where customers can divide the bill, if they place group orders, which is also very convenient.

Due to the Wix Reservations, OpenTable Reservations and other suchlike apps, clients will be able to book tables in a restaurant. Additionally, the system allows promoting your project in social networks, while your guests will be able to share their comments and reviews there.

With Wix, your guests can leave their testimonials and reviews on the website as well as get in touch with you via the live chat and online forms.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Paid Website with Wix?

Along with a free unlimited plan, Wix offers two groups of premium subscriptions – Website and Business/eCommerce. When it comes to restaurant website creation, Unlimited or BusinessBasic plans will work well.

They are provided at the same cost – $27 per month, offering custom domain name connection, opportunity for extra app integration, analytic tools and other privileges. More expensive subscriptions are available here as well.

#6. IM Creator – Free Drag & Drop Software for a Restaurant Website

IM Creator – is a free drag & drop software for a restaurant website, which does not require programming proficiency or complex web design nuances to be used to advantage.

What Restaurant Website You Can Create with IM Creator

The website builder works great for restaurant website owners as it allows adding:

• online menus;
• contacts;
• feedback forms;
• client interaction tools;
• galleries;
• blogs;
• OpenTable Reservations form;
• events.

Free Restaurant Website with IM Creator – What You Get

The website builder comes with a long list of tools and features needed for your restaurant website. There is a separate category of templates for this type of project here.

The designs are all free, responsive and easy-to-customize for everyone. You can switch the themes on any stage of the website creation process and it is also possible to create a restaurant website from scratch with a blank theme.

IM Creator is also known for its eCommerce engine. It allows offering dishes/products/services for sale, setting payment parameters and connecting payment systems available in stock.

Blog connection is possible here as well. This contributes to more effective interaction between customers and restaurant website owners.

OpenTable Reservations widget makes it possible to place orders online. There is also access to other extensions like Google event schedule list, PDF viewer,Facebook comments etc. that help complete versatile tasks.

Additionally, IM Creator comes with multilingual support. As a result, users can create several language versions of their restaurant websites to target users from abroad.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Paid Website with IM Creator?

IM Creator positions itself as a free website builder, but it is actually free for non-profit use only. If you decide to set up a restaurant website, get ready to upgrade to a premium plan. Its price currently constitutes $8 per month.

The plan is ad-free and implies the opportunity for domain name connection, premium support, unlimited hosting, eCommerce features and access to all templates.

#7. GoDaddy – Restaurant Website Builder with Domain Name and Hosting

GoDaddy – is a restaurant website builder with hosting and domain name option, which works well for entrepreneurs and offers a powerful feature set to create a feature-rich project.

What Restaurant Website You Can Create with GoDaddy

GoDaddy is a nice pick for those, who need a quality yet simple restaurant website that includes:

• online menu;
• restaurant info;
• online ordering/booking;
• OpenTable reservations;
• customer reviews;
• gallery;
• email newsletters;
• blog;
• event calendar.

Free Restaurant Website with GoDaddy – What You Get

GoDaddy is applied for a variety of website creation purposes, including restaurant website development. Along with the website builder, the software offers hosting options, which allows creating and saving your project in the same place.

To start working on your website, you can select a suitable template from the software collection. There is a separate category of restaurant food designs that work great for your place. The themes are free, customizable and mobile-ready by default.

To enable customers place orders online, GoDaddy allows integrating its OpenTable reservations widget. This is a must-have for a restaurant website.

Additionally, the platform makes it possible to connect a blog, add galleries and customer reviews/testimonials, activate an email newsletter feature etc.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Paid Website with GoDaddy?

GoDaddy has a free trial that extends for 7 days that lets you test its functionality. As soon as the trial comes to its end, you will be able to upgrade to one of the premium plans.

The cheapest of them costs $6.99 per month. It offers free domain name registration, 50 designs to choose from, 100 emails per month, integrated analytics etc.

#8. Duda – Multifaceted Platform for Your Cafe/Restaurant Project

Duda – is a multifaceted platform for your cafe/restaurant project that has much to offer to all user categories, from beginners to web design pros.

What Restaurant Website You Can Create with Duda

While Duda is an all-in-one website builder, it can be applied for restaurant website development, letting you add the following niche elements to your project:

• OpenTable reservations;
• online menu;
• video presentations;
• galleries;
• client reviews;
• contacts.

Free Restaurant Website with Duda – What You Get

Just like its multiple competitors, Duda has quite an impressive template collection with a separate category of restaurant themes. They feature worthy quality and can be customized for any desktop/mobile device.

The website builder also allows integrating an OpenTable reservations widget to let customers place their order or book tables directly on the website and in the live mode. The system also lets you add galleries and video presentations to showcase your restaurant features, main dishes and special offers. This always helps drive user attention.

Opportunity to add customer testimonials and reviews matters a lot as well, making it possible for potential clients to find out more about the place and its reputations. By the way, you can create several language versions of your project due to the multilingual support feature Duda comes with.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Paid Website with Duda?

If you need to test the software before upgrading to a premium plan, Duda lets you do that for free during the 14-day trial. Upon the end of the term, though, there is a need to upgrade to a premium subscription.

The price of the most cost-effective Basic Plan constitutes $19 per month or $14 per month, if billed annually. The subscription provides an opportunity to create one website, host it on its servers, use email support and domain name connection.

#9. Weebly – Simple Website Builder with an eCommerce Focus

Weebly – is a simple website builder with an eCommerce focus, which makes it possible to launch professional restaurant websites without writing a line of code.

What Restaurant Website You Can Create with Weebly

Due to the convenient drag-and-drop editor of the system, abundance of customization tools and a “box” model structure, everyone can use the service to set up a restaurant website with:

• online booking;
• online menu;
• contacts/working hours;
• email newsletters;
• client testimonials;
• slideshows/galleries/video presentations.

Free Restaurant Website with Weebly – What You Get

The website builder comes with the integrated eCommerce engine that lets you give your restaurant niche features, including online payment options, order placement, booking and many more.

When adding a very new web page, you can pick a certain layout for it with regard to the type of restaurant/cafe you run. Apart from such layouts as homepages, about us sections, contacts etc., you can also pick creative menu designs for your restaurant website.

Weebly come with integrated video hosting that lets you upload all kinds of restaurant-related videos either from YouTube or directly from your computer.

The website builder has a number of niche-specific widgets in its App Center. These include Restaurant Menu App, OpenMenu, GloriaFood extension built for restaurants and cafes and used for table reservation/food ordering etc.

With Weebly, you can now create online forms to let users create RSVP lists, surveys, custom contact forms and other website elements. This will especially work great for restaurant websites, which target specific customer types.

Finally, Weebly offers a stunning collection of restaurant templates, which are responsive by default and allow for CSS code editing options.

How Much Does It Cost to Create a Paid Website with Weebly?

Weebly is a moderately-priced website builder, which has separate plans for standard and eCommerce projects.

There is a free plan, while the cost of the paid subscriptions (Connect, Pro and Business) starts at $5 to reach $25 per month for ordinary websites. eCommerce subscriptions start at $12/mo.

#10. Delivery – Online Orders From the Best Restaurants/Stores in the Neighbourhood

Delivery – is a service that allows making and receiving online orders from the best restaurants in the neighborhood.

What You Can Make with Delivery

Delivery is not a website builder in the traditional understanding of this term. Instead, the service allows:

• finding the best deals in the neighborhood;
• placing orders online;
• ordering merchant food and drink delivery or individual pick up;
• adding group orders;
• choosing from thousands of restaurants and stores in your location;
• Earning Score Delivery Points.

Free Services with Delivery – What You Get

Delivery is a service that lets users place food/drink orders online from their local stores, restaurants, cafes, laundry and dry cleaning providers.

Nothing special is required to use the service. Just enter your address and browse thousands of closest destinations (stores and restaurants) to get the best deals and to order what you need. This is easy, quick and convenient.

Along with the online version of the program, there is an opportunity to download and install the Delivery app on your Android or iOS device. This allows having the app within reach 24/7.

Placing group orders is possible here as well. The system even provides corporate discounts, catering, bulk orders etc.

Delivery has a rewarding score system, which allows earning points with every order you make. You will further be able to redeem for the software credits, donations, prizes, gift cards and special offers. The more you order – the better rewards you get.

By the way, if you are a business owner willing to be enlisted with Delivery, the system allows joining the catalog that currently encompasses over 12 thousand places to reach more users.

How Much Does It Cost to Use Delivery?

Placing orders is simple and free, when using Delivery. The cost of using the service includes the fee for selective destinations. To find out the exact cost of your order, contact the service managers.

Building a Restaurant Website: The Ultimate Guide

The launch of a restaurant website (just like that of any other business) implies several must-have steps. Here is what you should to make your restaurant website a success:

1. Pick the Domain Name

When choosing the domain name for your restaurant website, keep in mind that it should initially reflect its niche specialization. Thus, the domain is just unthinkable without your brand name mentioned. Sometimes, though, popular brand-related domains are already taken and unavailable. In this case, you can add any specification to it, be it a location, specialization, type of a restaurant and what not.

2. Select a Trusted Web Design Service

There are several variants to choose from here. These include CMS, custom made websites ordered from a web studio / a freelance designer or a DIY website launched with a website builder.

• The first variant implies web design expertise and advanced coding skill level.
• The second option works best for business owners, who are ready to invest into their restaurant website development.

The use of website builders, in its turn, is the best alternative to the previous two variants as these services are easy-to-use, convenient, affordable and many of them don’t require any web design skills, providing a rich feature set instead.

3. Choose Website Design

Proper design choice is one of the most time-taking, challenging and responsible steps of the entire website development process. This is because the way your website looks is what initially drives the attention of potential customers and makes it stand out from the crowd, especially when compared to niche competitors.

A restaurant website should not only be visually attractive, but it should also display your restaurant specialization and related info in the best way possible to encourage customers to keep browsing it. Website builders mostly offer responsive niche restaurant and cafe templates you can further customize based on your needs.

4. Develop Website Structure

Are you done with design choice? Then it’s high time to proceed to the development of its structure. With this purpose, you may have a look at websites of your niche competitors not to overlook must-have sections, pages, categories and elements.

Don’t add too many pages or sections as this may puzzle first-time users. Likewise, don’t forget that all the most important website elements should be at hand so that your customers won’t spend their effort and time browsing website pages and looking for them.

Make sure to include the most important points most users are interested in, such as the About Us page, Menu enlisting the dishes, their photos and descriptions, Special Offers, Price List, Customer Reviews and, of course, Contacts. If your restaurant has any special highlight, you can add the missing points to the website menu or even a separate section as well.

5. Fill Website with Content

Now that your website structure and menu are ready, it is high time to fill the project with content. Make sure it unveils the most important aspects of your restaurant and provides detailed info about it.

Browse through the samples of restaurant websites available on the web and see what they offer and how they structure the content to engage client attention. Content is the most crucial part of your website. Keep that in mind.

6. Integrate Niche Extensions

Whatever restaurant/cafe you have, integrating extensions will certainly contribute to your project performance. The range of available applications will mainly depend on the service you use.

Each website builder has its own collection of tools that can boost your restaurant website functionality. You can pick widgets for project development, promotion, marketing, customer interaction, design creation, analytics/stats tracking etc. the apps can be free and paid, which also depends on the resource chosen.

7. Publish the Project

Having made all the edits, don’t forget to save the changes and to preview the result. If everything is ok and you are satisfied with the result, go ahead to publish the project.

Online Restaurant Website Promotion

Creating a website is only a part of the business. The next aspect you should be concerned about is its further promotion. How else will your visitors find out about your restaurant and will be ready to reach it online? This is where you have several effective solutions:

SEO Promotion and Advertising

Your website should be well-optimized for the search engines to get to the top positions. The success of your SEO promotion frequently depends upon the web building option you have selected as many services have different offers.

Website builders, for example, are mostly SEO-friendly, which eliminates the necessity to hire professional SEO companies to promote your restaurant website.

Paid ads matter a lot for your restaurant website promotion as well. You can use location targeting to ensure that users in certain cities/destinations can see the ads. PPC strategy can also work great for your business, but you need an expert to make the required settings.

Social Media Marketing

Promotion of your restaurant website in social networks may also contribute to the overall business reputation. Having built your online presence in Facebook and Instagram by means of creating social profiles, you can develop a step-by-step plan.

To start with, it is important to properly maintain and optimize the profiles you have created. Thus, you need to post images, add videos (including live ones) and stories that represent your restaurant and attract relevant audience.

Next, you have to track your social network activity to be able to respond to comments, likes, shares and other notes on time. This will have a positive impact upon your reputation.

Finally, take your time to follow and engage with customers, subscribers, followers and partners to build an impressive community.

Google Business Profile

Having a professional Google Business profile is also crucial for your restaurant promotion. This listing type lets you appear on Google Maps as well as in local search results.

You also need to optimize your Google Business profile to get higher ranking on Google Maps and start generating traffic.

This is what your Google listing should contain:

• Business contact info;
• Customer reviews (this is one of the most crucial elements);
• Questions and Answers;
• Photos;
• Reviews added by other businesses;
• Business category etc.

Having submitted this info, make sure you keep it up-to-date and accurate. Anyway, restaurant goers like doing online research before they actually visit the place in person. This is what makes professional online promotion a must for your business.

Bottom Line

Having a restaurant website is a must for every owner of this place, who intends to grow the customer base, make profit and promote the business with maximum efficiency.

The more successful the website development process is – the more chances you have to withstand niche competition and make your endeavor prosperous.

What you should realize is that building a website is the first and, probably, the most important part of the entire process. However, you should also know that boosting its online popularity and further promotion in Google and social networks matters a lot as well. To get outstanding results, you should successfully and wisely combine these two factors.

When it comes to website development, it’s quite clear that the prevailing amount of entrepreneurs don’t have a single notion of what this process includes. This is not to mention the awareness of coding skills.

Using a website builder is a surefire way to make this process quick and effective. These systems are specially meant for users with different web design skills. They allow creating quality restaurant websites with no hassle and serious investment of time, money and effort.

• Content Management Systems like WordPress are somewhat difficult to master. They imply the preliminary knowledge of web design basics. Website development expertise is also desirable here, if you wish to reach the high end result. Using WordPress is unthinkable without plugin and template integration, which also requires certain coding awareness. If you are not a web design pro, it makes sense to give preference to website builders.

• All-in-one website builders like Wix, Weebly, SITE123, IM Creator, Duda and Squarespace can cope with restaurant website creation much faster and more effectively due to their powerful options and design customization tools. They also come with restaurant-specific features and templates, which will give your project desired functionality and impressive design.

• Website builders that come with hosting providers, such as Gator and GoDaddy, eliminate the need to look for third-party hosts. As a result, users appreciate the opportunity to create and host restaurant websites in one place.

To get the most out of the web building process, you’ll frequently have to use a paid plan, which provides access to the advanced features. They can maximize the effect, bringing your restaurant website to the new level.

• Specialized services like Delivery won’t let you build a stand-alone project as they have quite another implication. They make it possible to place online orders in restaurants and stores in the preferred location, getting bonuses and rewards instead.

It’s up to you to select the most suitable web design option for your restaurant project. You just need to invest some effort and time, exploring the available systems, their parameters, pricing policy, pros and cons. Hopefully, the reviews listed in the post will help you make the right choice!