A restaurant website that answers the menu, the hours and the table question
Diners open a restaurant's site on a phone to answer four things: what's on the menu and what it costs, when you're open, where you are, and how to get a table. A good restaurant website answers all four on the first screen and keeps the menu true to what the kitchen is cooking tonight. Here's how to plan one, and where Anticode fits and where a reservations tool does that one job better.
What diners check before they choose
Nobody reads a restaurant's history before deciding where to eat on a Friday. They scan, usually standing in the street or sitting on a sofa with friends, and they leave the moment a question goes unanswered. Put these where a thumb finds them without scrolling:
- Tonight's hours, with the kitchen's last orders as well as the door time. "Open until 11, kitchen closes 9.30" saves an awkward conversation at the host stand.
- The address as a map link, plus the nearest station, bus stop or car park. A tap that opens the visitor's own map app beats an embedded map that loads slowly.
- The menu, with prices. A menu without prices reads as either very expensive or out of date.
- How to book, or a plain statement that you're walk-in only.
- A phone number written so it can be tapped to call, for the people who'd rather just ring.
The menu is the page that does the selling
The commonest mistake is a scanned PDF of the printed menu. It's slow on mobile data, can't be zoomed comfortably, isn't read well by search engines, and is usually two seasons old. Put the menu on the page as text, grouped the way the kitchen thinks about it: snacks, small plates, mains, sides, desserts, drinks.
With Anticode the menu can live in a CMS collection you edit from the dashboard, with fields such as dish name, section, short description, price and dietary tags. The collection is served at its own address (for example /menu/), so changing a price or striking off a sold-out special is a form edit, not a rebuild. If you change the menu weekly, the weekly menu workflow walks through a routine that keeps the online version from drifting.
Allergen and dietary information needs care. Mark vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options consistently, say how guests should tell you about an allergy, and avoid words like "free from" unless your kitchen can truly stand behind them. The rules on allergen information differ by country; the restaurant is responsible for getting its own wording right.
Reservations, honestly
Anticode's booking calendar takes one booking per time slot. It refuses dates in the past and more than 120 days ahead, and two visitors can never take the same slot. It doesn't know about covers, table sizes, turn times or no-show deposits, and it doesn't sync with another calendar. That makes it right for some restaurants and wrong for most busy dining rooms.
| Your situation | What tends to work |
|---|---|
| A chef's counter or tasting menu with fixed single sittings | The booking calendar, one slot per sitting |
| A private dining room let by the evening | The booking calendar, or an enquiry form you confirm by hand |
| A dining room taking many parties at 8pm | A dedicated reservations tool, linked from a clear Book a table button |
| Walk-ins only | Say so in the first screen, with the times the queue is shortest |
A reservation request form (a custom form tied to a site function) is the middle path for smaller places: date, time, party size, name, phone and a notes field for high chairs or birthdays. You confirm each one yourself, so set expectations on the page ("we reply within a few hours").
Groups, private hire and events
Large-party and private-dining enquiries are often worth more than a week of two-tops, and they deserve their own short form: preferred date, number of guests, budget per head if they know it, and the occasion. Anticode saves each submission and can email it to you or post it to a Slack channel the manager watches, or add it as a row in Google Sheets for whoever plans events. See routing enquiries to the right person for how to split them up.
The look: real food, the real room
Generic generated restaurant sites give themselves away fast: stock photos of a cuisine the restaurant doesn't serve, a "culinary journey" headline, a reviews strip with no names. Use your own photos of the actual plates and the actual dining room, even taken on a phone in good daylight. On Anticode, photos you upload are used by app builds; a design-engine page draws on a curated photo library, so to show your own dishes there, put hosted images in a CMS collection such as the menu, or ask for an app build that uses your uploads.
For the design direction, Editorial (Geist) suits a bistro with a writerly menu, Luxury (Jost) suits fine dining with generous spacing, Organic (Figtree) suits a seasonal or farm-led kitchen, and Playful (Fredoka) can carry a taqueria or a dumpling bar. Pick one action colour for the Book button and let it appear nowhere else.
Where Anticode stops for restaurants
- No online ordering. There's no cart, takeaway ordering, delivery zones or kitchen ticketing. Link to your ordering or delivery provider.
- No table management. One booking per slot, no covers, no deposits, no calendar sync.
- English pages only. If many of your guests read another language, Anticode can't produce a translated version today.
- No reviews feed. You can quote real guests with their permission, but nothing pulls reviews in from other sites.
Questions people ask
Can I update the menu myself without rebuilding the site?
Yes. Keep the menu in a CMS collection and edit dishes and prices in the dashboard; the collection pages update when you save.
Can guests install the site like an app?
Every published Anticode site can be installed on a phone's home screen, with an offline fallback page. It's handy for regulars, though most diners will still find you through search or a map app.
Can I use my own domain name?
On paid plans you can connect your own domain; free sites publish to a name.anticode.dev address and carry a small Anticode badge. See /pricing for the plans.
Is a restaurant website builder enough if I take most bookings by phone?
Often, yes. A clear menu, hours, map link and a tap-to-call number cover most of what diners need, and a request form catches anyone who'd rather not ring.