Most independent restaurant websites fail quietly. Not with a bang — with a phone tap that doesn't call the restaurant, a menu that won't open on an iPhone, a reservation button that lands on a broken form. Nobody complains; they just go somewhere else. This checklist walks you through the twenty-four checks I run first on every restaurant site I'm asked to audit. Score your own — 1 point for each "yes" — and see where you stand at the end. It takes about ten minutes.

Prefer automated? The free Restaurant Website Audit runs a real mobile Lighthouse scan against your URL in about thirty seconds and maps the results back to the items in this checklist.

Jump to a category

The basics6 items
Mobile experience4 items
Conversions8 items
Findability6 items
Trust6 items

The basics.

Category 1 of 5 · 6 items 0 / 6

01

Your menu opens on a phone without zooming.

Why

More than 70% of restaurant traffic is mobile. PDF menus are the single most common sin — they render too small to read, and first-time diners bounce within five seconds.

10-sec test

Open your site on your phone. Tap "Menu." Can you read the first dish name without pinching?

Fix

Replace PDF menus with real HTML menu pages. If you must serve a PDF, at least embed it behind a mobile-friendly menu summary so visitors see something readable first.

02

Your hours are visible within 5 seconds of landing.

Why

"Are they open right now?" is the most common reason someone lands on a restaurant homepage. If they can't answer it in five seconds, they call a different place.

10-sec test

Load your homepage. Count the seconds until you see today's hours without scrolling.

Fix

Put hours in the hero, in a persistent header bar, or — best of all — in a small "OPEN NOW · until 10pm" badge that updates automatically based on the current time.

03

Your address is real, copyable text — not an image.

Why

People long-press the address to copy it into Apple Maps or Google Maps. Images aren't copyable, so they have to retype — and half of them don't.

10-sec test

Long-press your address on your phone. Does a "Copy" option appear?

Fix

Use real text wrapped in a Maps link: <a href="https://maps.google.com/?q=Your+Address">. Bonus points for an embedded map that opens to directions on tap.

04

Your phone number is a tap-to-call link.

Why

Tap-to-call converts a visitor into a phone call with one gesture. A phone number you have to copy by hand loses most of that intent — and for a Tuesday-night reservation, the tap-to-call link is the whole funnel.

10-sec test

Tap your phone number on your mobile site. Does the dialer open immediately with your number pre-filled?

Fix

Wrap the number in <a href="tel:+15551234567">. Free, takes thirty seconds, and the conversion lift is real.

05

Your homepage answers "what kind of restaurant is this" in one sentence.

Why

Visitors who don't already know you need cuisine, neighborhood, and vibe in under four seconds. "Welcome to Joe's" tells them nothing. A first-time visitor who can't classify you in the time it takes to drink a sip of coffee will bounce.

10-sec test

Show your homepage to someone who's never heard of your restaurant. Ask them what kind of place it is. If they hesitate, you fail.

Fix

Add a subhead under your name that names cuisine + neighborhood + vibe. Something like "Neighborhood Italian · Silver Spring · family-run since 1998."

25

Dietary markers on the menu.

Why

About 1 in 3 diners avoids at least one food group — vegan, gluten-free, halal, kosher, dairy-free, nut-free. A menu that marks options with V/GF/DF symbols (with a legend) lets dietary-aware eaters self-qualify and book with confidence. A menu that doesn't sends them to a competitor's site that said so plainly.

10-sec test

Open your menu page on a phone. Count the dishes that call out ANY dietary signal. Fewer than three? You have a gap. Zero? Your menu is invisible to a meaningful slice of searchers.

Fix

Add V / GF / DF symbols to the dishes they apply to, and put a one-line legend at the top of the menu. For bakeries with custom-order intake, add a dietary-restriction field to the form — it's a safety signal as much as a marketing one.

Mobile experience.

Category 2 of 5 · 4 items 0 / 4

06

Your homepage's Core Web Vitals pass on mobile.

Why

Google's own research: 53% of mobile visitors abandon a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. Beyond that, the three Core Web Vitals — Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) — are direct Google ranking signals. Slow, janky, layout-shifty sites rank lower in "restaurants near me" search AND convert worse once someone actually lands.

10-sec test

Run your URL through pagespeed.web.dev. Under Mobile, you want LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, and CLS under 0.1 — those are Google's "good" thresholds. Anything over 4s LCP or 500ms INP is a real emergency; the audit tool calls those out by name too.

Fix

Compress hero images to WebP or AVIF (80% size reduction, no visual loss). Defer non-critical JavaScript. Remove render-blocking web fonts or use font-display: swap. Reserve explicit dimensions on every image so layout doesn't shift as images load. If your site is on Wix or Squarespace and still slow after those fixes, you've hit the template ceiling.

07

Tap targets are large enough to hit with a thumb.

Why

Anything smaller than about 44 × 44 pixels on mobile creates "fat finger" failures. A missed tap is a moment of friction, and enough friction sends people back to Google.

10-sec test

Open your mobile site one-handed. Can you tap every button, link, and menu item with your thumb without zooming or squinting?

Fix

Set a minimum button size of 44px. Add padding around text links. Space nav items out so they aren't stacked within a thumb's reach of each other.

08

Your body copy is legible without pinch-zoom.

Why

Text under 16 pixels forces iOS to zoom on focus and frustrates every mobile reader. The menu description that looks fine on your laptop screen is often unreadable on your customer's iPhone at arm's length.

10-sec test

Open your site on an actual phone — not a desktop "responsive view." Can you read a menu description at arm's length without squinting?

Fix

Set your body font-size to at least 16px. For anything you actually want someone to read — menu descriptions, about copy, the story of your place — aim for 17 or 18px.

09

Your site doesn't load zoomed-out on a phone.

Why

Behind the scenes, this is about a single line of code called the "viewport" tag. Without it, mobile browsers render your site at desktop width and then shrink the whole thing down to fit — which breaks every other mobile check on this list in one go. Some template and DIY sites still get this wrong.

10-sec test

Open your homepage on your phone. When it loads, is everything already sized for the screen — or do you see a tiny desktop layout that you have to pinch and zoom just to read? If it's the second one, you fail this check.

Fix

Ask whoever built your site to add this line to the <head> of every page: <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">. It's a one-minute fix. If your site is on a modern custom build, this is already handled.

Conversions.

Category 3 of 5 · 8 items 0 / 8

10

A reservation action is visible on every page.

Why

A visitor who has decided to book shouldn't have to hunt for how. If your "Reservations" link lives only in a dropdown menu or at the bottom of the homepage, you're adding friction to the exact moment you want to remove it.

10-sec test

Open any page of your site — the menu, the about, the story. Can you start a reservation in one tap without scrolling?

Fix

Put a reservation CTA in your main nav and a persistent sticky footer on mobile. The button should be visible from the first pixel of every page.

11

Your "Order online" button goes straight to checkout.

Why

Every step between "Order online" and your actual POS checkout leaks conversions. A menu page, a cookie banner, a "choose pickup or delivery" splash — each one costs you orders.

10-sec test

Tap "Order online" from your homepage. Count the steps until you see a real menu item you can add to a cart.

Fix

Link directly to your Toast, Square, ChowNow, or custom ordering URL. Skip the interstitial. If your POS doesn't allow direct checkout links, that's a POS problem worth fixing.

12

Your address has a click-to-get-directions link.

Why

On mobile, "Directions" should open the native maps app with your address pre-filled. Anything less — typing, copy-paste, a broken embed — is a tax on visitors who have already decided to come in.

10-sec test

Tap "Get directions" or your address on your mobile site. Does Apple Maps or Google Maps launch with your restaurant as the destination?

Fix

Link your address to https://maps.google.com/?q= followed by your URL-encoded address. Or use the native maps: protocol for iOS.

13

You have real photos of the room, the food, and the people.

Why

Stock photos feel dishonest. Grainy phone pics signal amateur. Real, in-focus photos of the actual space and plates are the single most powerful conversion element on a restaurant website — they either sell the vibe or kill it.

10-sec test

Scroll your homepage. Count the photos that are (a) of your actual restaurant and (b) sharp enough to look professional.

Fix

Hire a local food and interior photographer for a two-hour session. Typical cost: $300–$700. You'll use those photos on the site, Google Business Profile, Instagram, Yelp, and every menu reprint for years.

14

Social proof is visible above the fold — not buried in a testimonials page.

Why

Social proof only works where the decision happens. A glowing Washingtonian review on your "Press" page helps nobody; the same quote in your hero changes bookings this week.

10-sec test

Load your homepage on mobile. Before you scroll, can you see a review quote, press mention, or star rating?

Fix

Move one or two short quotes into the hero or immediately beneath it. A press logo row or a star rating from Google also works. Rotate them occasionally so regulars don't get bored.

26

A way to buy a gift card on your site.

Why

Gift cards are the highest-margin line on a restaurant site. Roughly 20-30% of cards go unredeemed — pure revenue — and every redeemed one brings in the recipient plus whatever they spend above the face value. November and December alone can pay for a full catering-menu redesign.

10-sec test

From your homepage, can you buy a $50 gift card in three taps? If 'Gift cards' isn't in the main nav or footer, it effectively doesn't exist for the 90% of visitors who won't hunt for it.

Fix

Toast, Square, and most modern POS systems offer one-click gift-card storefronts. Turn yours on, add 'Gift cards' to the main nav and the footer, and add a hero-adjacent callout every November.

27

A newsletter or email capture form.

Why

Your email list is the only marketing channel you own outright. Instagram's algorithm can bury you, Google's rules can change, aggregators can raise commissions — but a list of guests who said yes still delivers. Restaurants with a newsletter capture typically see 3-5× higher repeat-visit rates from subscribers vs. non-subscribers.

10-sec test

Scroll your homepage all the way down. Is there an email-capture form you could fill in without opening a modal? If the only form is a contact form buried on a Contact page, you're missing the easiest owned-channel win.

Fix

Add an inline email form to your homepage footer and any long-form page (blog post, about page). Use Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ConvertKit, or whatever your POS integrates with. Avoid modal popups — they convert worse than inline placements and annoy visitors.

28

A catering or private-events page.

Why

Event planners comparing three caterers on a Tuesday afternoon don't read homepages. They search 'catering [neighborhood]' and land on catering pages. Without one, you rank for nothing and convert nothing; with one, a single holiday-party booking often pays for the page three times over.

10-sec test

Search 'catering [your neighborhood]' on Google. Does your site appear? Then click through to your own site and try to book an event. If the path isn't obvious in two clicks, you're losing planners to competitors whose page is.

Fix

Build a dedicated /catering/ page with packages, per-head pricing, minimum lead time, service radius, and a structured quote-request form. ezCater, CaterTrax, and Tripleseat all slot in with minimal dev work. For fine-dining restaurants, a private-dining-room page is the same idea.

Once a quarter: run your menu through the Matrix.

The 30 items above keep the website doing its job. The Menu Engineering Matrix is the 30-minute exercise that keeps the menu on the website doing its job — Stars / Plowhorses / Puzzles / Dogs, run on your own numbers.

Open Menu Engineering

Findability.

Category 4 of 5 · 6 items 0 / 6

15

You have a claimed, verified Google Business Profile.

Why

Roughly 60% of restaurant discovery now happens in Google Maps — the "local pack" of three map results that sits above the regular search results. If you don't have a claimed Business Profile, you're invisible to every hungry stranger searching for "[cuisine] near me."

10-sec test

Search your restaurant name in Google Maps. Is there a claimed listing with correct hours, photos, menu link, and category? Does it show a "claimed" badge or let you edit it?

Fix

Claim yours at google.com/business. Free. Setup takes thirty minutes, verification by postcard or phone takes a week. Then fill in hours, categories, photos, menu URL, and service areas. Post at least once a month.

16

Your <title> tag names both your restaurant and your cuisine.

Why

The title tag is the single strongest on-page SEO signal you have. "Home | Joe's" tells Google nothing. "Joe's Trattoria — Handmade Italian in Silver Spring, MD" tells it exactly what to rank you for.

10-sec test

View the source of your homepage and find the <title> tag. Does it contain your cuisine and your city? Is it under 60 characters?

Fix

Rewrite your title to include restaurant name + cuisine + city. Keep it under 60 characters or Google will truncate it in the search results.

17

You have Restaurant schema markup in JSON-LD.

Why

Schema is how Google learns your cuisine, hours, price range, menu URL, and phone number in a structured way it can actually read. That's what powers the rich-result panel — the block with your star rating, hours, and menu snippets that sits above the plain blue links and earns most of the clicks. Sites without Restaurant schema get the plain blue link and watch competitors get the rich panel. The audit tool also cross-checks the schema's openingHoursSpecification against your Google Business Profile and flags mismatches.

10-sec test

Run your URL through Google's Rich Results Test ↗. A "Restaurant" (or FastFoodRestaurant, Bakery, BarOrPub, etc.) detection passes; "No items detected" is a fail.

Fix

Add a <script type="application/ld+json"> block to your <head> with @type: "Restaurant" (or the subtype that matches you), name, full address, servesCuisine, priceRange, telephone, acceptsReservations, hasMenu, and an openingHoursSpecification array with an entry for every day of the week. Closed days can have opens/closes set to null. Validate every change against the Rich Results Test.

18

Every important image has meaningful alt text.

Why

Alt text describes images to screen readers — that's the accessibility case. It also tells Google what the image is — that's the SEO case. "IMG_2041.jpg" helps nobody. "A plate of handmade ravioli with sage brown butter at Joe's Trattoria in Silver Spring" helps both.

10-sec test

Inspect each photo on your homepage in your browser's dev tools. Does each <img> have an alt attribute that actually describes the image?

Fix

Rewrite alt text as real sentences. Describe what's in the photo and — where it's natural — name your restaurant and city. Decorative images can have alt="", but nothing should be missing the attribute entirely.

19

You have a sitemap.xml submitted to Google Search Console.

Why

Sitemaps tell Google what pages exist and how often they change. Not strictly required, but a big accelerant for new or small sites — and Search Console is the only place you can actually see which keywords are bringing people to you.

10-sec test

Visit yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. If it 404s, you don't have one. Then log into Search Console and check the "Sitemaps" section.

Fix

Generate a sitemap (most static site generators and CMSes do this automatically; there are also free online tools for handwritten sites). Upload to your site root. Verify your domain in Google Search Console and submit the sitemap URL.

29

Hours on your site match your Google Business Profile.

Why

Drift happens: you update Daylight Saving in GBP, but your site still says the old hours. Or you publish holiday hours in one place but not the other. Google trusts GBP first, so a mismatched site can trigger a 'hours may vary' hint in search results — which tanks click-through from 'open now' searches.

10-sec test

Open your homepage in one tab and google.com/business in another. Do today's hours match? What about Sunday? Holiday hours during November-December? Daylight Saving transitions?

Fix

Pick one canonical source (usually GBP, since it feeds Google's rich results directly) and update it first whenever hours change. Reflect the change on your site AND in your Restaurant JSON-LD schema the same day. The audit tool runs a three-way cross-check and flags mismatches.

15 minutes that prevent a year of drift.

Hours wrong in one place is the #1 driver of bad reviews after stale menus. Open Hours is the 15-minute fix-up — a sign for the door, the exact text to paste into Google, and a block of code to send your website builder. Run it once a quarter.

Open Open Hours

Trust.

Category 5 of 5 · 6 items 0 / 6

20

Your site is served over HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate.

Why

Modern browsers show "Not secure" warnings on any site still running HTTP. Visitors don't read the warning — they just leave. And Google demotes insecure sites in local search.

10-sec test

Load your site and look at the URL bar. Is there a padlock icon? Is the URL https:// not http://? No warning banner?

Fix

If your host doesn't offer free HTTPS (via Let's Encrypt or Cloudflare) in 2026, switch hosts. Immediately. There is no good excuse left.

21

Your menu prices are visible — not "Ask your server."

Why

Hidden prices signal that you're embarrassed about them. First-time diners who can't see what the check will be leave to find a place where they can. Even high-end restaurants benefit from honest prices online — the right customer filters themselves in, not out.

10-sec test

Open your menu page. Can you see the price of every dish without clicking through to a PDF or a separate page?

Fix

Show the prices. If you're prix fixe or tasting-menu only, state the total price prominently. If you're a pub with forty items and weekly rotation, keep the top sellers priced and update them in under a minute.

22

Your site has a visible "last updated" signal — or seasonal content.

Why

Stale sites feel closed. A homepage that hasn't changed since 2019 makes visitors wonder if the restaurant is even still open. A visible date, a seasonal menu, or a "this week" section tells them you're still here.

10-sec test

Look at your homepage. Is there anything — a date, a seasonal badge, an event, a weekly feature — that proves the site was touched in the last three months?

Fix

Add "Seasonal menu · Fall 2026" to your menu header. Keep a small "This week" section on the homepage with a rotating special or event. Or display the last content update date in the footer.

23

Your contact form actually sends emails you actually read.

Why

An unread contact form is worse than no contact form — it's a silent trust-poisoning failure. A private event inquiry that never gets a reply becomes a public Google review that definitely does.

10-sec test

Fill out your own contact form with a real test message. Does it land in your inbox within five minutes? Is that inbox actually checked every day?

Fix

Test it every week. If the form isn't delivering reliably, rip it out and replace it with a mailto: link and your phone number. A working simple thing beats a broken sophisticated thing every time.

24

Your menu text is readable in bright sunlight.

Why

Light-gray text on a cream background looks refined in a studio — and disappears on an iPhone held outside a restaurant at noon. A 55-year-old standing in direct sun is the real audience for your menu typography, and most restaurant sites fail them. The formal bar is WCAG AA contrast (4.5:1 for body text, 3:1 for large headings), and it matches what people can actually read outdoors.

10-sec test

Open your site on your phone. Step outside at mid-day if you can. Can you read a menu description without shading the screen with your other hand? If the answer is no, you fail — and if you're not sure, WebAIM's contrast checker will give you a precise number for any foreground/background pair.

Fix

Darken body text to at least #4a4a4a on a cream or white background, or lift the background slightly. For menu item names specifically, go one step bolder than you think you need. Never use pure gray-on-cream for anything a hungry person needs to read.

30

Press mentions, awards, or a chef bio on the homepage.

Why

A first-time visitor is trying to answer 'is this place any good?' in four seconds. A quoted line from Eater or the NYT, a Michelin callout, or a chef-bio block with a real photo does that job faster than any testimonials carousel. Restaurants with hero-fold press mentions convert skeptical first-time visitors at measurably higher rates.

10-sec test

Open your homepage. Scroll only the first screen. Can you spot a press mention, award, or chef bio without scrolling further? If all your credibility lives on a /press/ page three clicks deep, it isn't converting anyone.

Fix

Pull your three strongest press quotes or awards into a hero-adjacent strip. For fine-dining, a chef-bio block with a real photo (not a stock headshot) says 'there's a human accountable to what comes out of this kitchen' — which is itself social proof.

The 31st check that lives off the website: how the menu reads.

The 30 items above keep the website pulling its weight. The Menu Copy Inspector is the language-layer companion — paste a description, see what's missing, what's working, what's dragging, and why. A teaching tool, not a rewriter.

Open Menu Copy Inspector

Have you briefed your photographer in the past 12 months?

Several of the checks above (hero photo, OG card, real photos) silently depend on this. The Photo Brief Builder turns your dish list and destinations (Yelp, Google, Instagram, the menu) into a one-page brief — so the photos that come back actually fit the slots the website needs.

Open Photo Brief Builder

Score yourself

How did your
restaurant do?

Add up the checks you passed. One point each, out of thirty. Then read the band that matches — it's an honest answer, not a polite one.

0 – 9 passes

Failing

Your website is actively losing you customers every week. Most of these fixes cost nothing but attention, and the ones that do cost something pay back within a month. Start with the basics category — even fixing those six alone will move the needle.

Fix items 1–6 this week
Claim your Google Business Profile next week
Budget a custom rebuild within 90 days

Have me fix this for you

10 – 19 passes

Middling

The basics are mostly in place, but the site isn't earning its keep. You're getting some reservations from the site but leaving more on the table. The missing items are usually in Findability and Trust — the ones that turn a passable site into one that ranks and converts.

Audit your findability category this week
Add Restaurant schema and alt text
Refresh photography if it's over two years old

Get a second pair of eyes

20 – 30 passes

Solid

You're in the top 10% of independent restaurant websites. Now it's a maintenance game — keep the photos fresh, rotate the press quotes, monitor page speed, update the seasonal menu every quarter. The leverage is in staying disciplined, not rebuilding.

Schedule a quarterly review of every item
Consider a Care Plan so the site doesn't rot
Add a blog or events page for recurring freshness

Talk about a Care Plan

Save it for later

Print or share
with your team.

The checklist lives as a live page — check items off as you go, save your progress on the device, and print a clean or marked-up copy whenever you need a physical handout for the kitchen or a planning meeting.

Your browser's Save as PDF option works great — Letter size, pen-friendly layout.

Or have me email a copy to your inbox

Need a hand?

Want me to fix
your failing items?

I build restaurant websites for independent operators in Silver Spring, DC, and the DMV. If you ran this checklist and found more "no" answers than you're comfortable with, let's talk — twenty minutes on Zoom, no pitch.

Email Don See restaurant services

The Restaurant Website Checklist. Thirty things your site should do in 2026.

Jump to a category

All 30 checks passed.

The basics.

Your menu opens on a phone without zooming.

Your hours are visible within 5 seconds of landing.

Your address is real, copyable text — not an image.

Your phone number is a tap-to-call link.

Your homepage answers "what kind of restaurant is this" in one sentence.

Dietary markers on the menu.

Mobile experience.

Your homepage's Core Web Vitals pass on mobile.

Tap targets are large enough to hit with a thumb.

Your body copy is legible without pinch-zoom.

Your site doesn't load zoomed-out on a phone.

Conversions.

A reservation action is visible on every page.

Your "Order online" button goes straight to checkout.

Your address has a click-to-get-directions link.

You have real photos of the room, the food, and the people.

Social proof is visible above the fold — not buried in a testimonials page.

A way to buy a gift card on your site.

A newsletter or email capture form.

A catering or private-events page.

Findability.

You have a claimed, verified Google Business Profile.

Your <title> tag names both your restaurant and your cuisine.

You have Restaurant schema markup in JSON-LD.

Every important image has meaningful alt text.

You have a sitemap.xml submitted to Google Search Console.

Hours on your site match your Google Business Profile.

Trust.

Your site is served over HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate.

Your menu prices are visible — not "Ask your server."

Your site has a visible "last updated" signal — or seasonal content.

Your contact form actually sends emails you actually read.

Your menu text is readable in bright sunlight.

Press mentions, awards, or a chef bio on the homepage.

How did yourrestaurant do?

Failing

Middling

Solid

Print or sharewith your team.

Want me to fixyour failing items?

The Restaurant Website Checklist.
Thirty things your site should do in 2026.

How did your
restaurant do?

Print or share
with your team.

Want me to fix
your failing items?