A beautiful site extends your restaurant's brand and makes it easy for customers to find your menu, locations, hours of operation, and latest specials. This guide reviews how to pick a starting design for your site and how to add common features including menus, reservations, hours, and location.

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Start with a restaurant design

While all Squarespace sites have the built-in design tools to make an exciting, original restaurant site, you may want to start with a design from the Restaurants category of the template store. These food-focused designs show off your cuisine while keeping key details front and center.

To get started, visit the template store and select Restaurants in the menu on the left. This filters the designs to only show restaurant-focused templates. Click Preview on any design, or click Start With to create a new site using that design. 

To learn more, visit Choosing the right template.

Offer online ordering

Increase pickup and delivery orders by embedding an online ordering page in your site's navigation menu. With our ChowNow integration, visitors can view your menu, submit an order, and pay using a collapsable ChowNow ordering page, all without leaving your site.

If you use an external ordering service, like DoorDash, Caviar, or Seamless, add a navigation menu link highlighting your delivery option on every page of your site.

To add a navigation link to your delivery order page:

1. In the Home Menu, click Pages.
2. Click the + icon next to the section where you want to add a link.
3. In the Create New Page menu, select Link.
4. In the link editor, enter the navigation link text under Link Title, like Delivery or Order Now. 
5. Under Link, add the URL visitors should use to place an order. This is sometimes called your "ordering link."
6. Click Save. 
7. To change the placement of your link in the navigation menu, move it in the Pages panel.

For more help with navigation links, including how to create them in the Squarespace App, visit Adding links to your navigation. 

Display hours and location

You can prominently display your hours and location information in several ways:

• Create a page with a Contact layout so visitors can find this information on your navigation menu.
• Add a Text Block and Map Block to a blank Layout Page, then set that page as your homepage.
• Add a Contact section to any page.
• Add your hours and location to your footer, making them visible from every page of your site.

Add your menus

Use a Menu page layout or section to create clear, stylish menus that blend with your site’s design. Both include a Menu Block where you can add your restaurant's menu. Unlike .pdfs, all text in the Menu Block is indexable by search engines, which can help your SEO.

If you have more than one menu, you can place multiple pages with Menu Blocks in a folder to create a drop-down menu. To learn more, visit Adding drop-down menus to your navigation with folders.

Use imagery

Beautiful images help promote your restaurant's identity, space, and cuisine. Use the following features to add images:

• Use gallery sections to display images of your location and top menu items.
• Add Image Blocks to other sections of your site to showcase individual images. 
• Combine text and imagery on any page by creating a section with a background image or video.

Take reservations

OpenTable

If you're part of the OpenTable network, you can use the OpenTable Block to take bookings and reservations.

Via phone or email

If you'd like customers to call or email, display an email address and phone number on the homepage or contact page. This can help your business feel friendly and accessible.

For help formatting email addresses and phone numbers as links, visit Adding links to your site.

Sell food and perishables online

You can sell items directly to customers through your site without solely relying on local retailers. Here are a few tips:

• If you sell products customers buy regularly, like coffee, create subscription products to bring in predictable, recurring revenue. 
• Display a stocklist to list retailers that carry your products. Use the Locations page layout to get started. 
• Create regional shipping zones to offer location-based shipping, delivery, or pickup options. 

To learn more about adding an online store to your site, visit Understanding Squarespace Commerce.

Promote social sharing

If your restaurant is active on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, or other social media platforms, you can promote your profiles by displaying social icons. To learn more, visit Adding social icons.

Optimize for search engines

Including your physical location on your site helps Google identify your location and promote your results in local searches. Although search engines use complex algorithms and results can't be guaranteed, signing up for Google MyBusiness, verifying your site with Google Search Console, and following these best practices can help your restaurant's search ranking.

Next steps

This is just the beginning of your restaurant's new site. Every restaurant is different, and you can use the following guides to customize your site for your unique vision:

• Promote specials or adjusted hours with an announcement bar.
• Add more pages for content like "Press," "Private Events," or an "About" page.
• Transfer a domain or register a new domain through Squarespace.
• Visit our Getting Started tutorial series for general tips on getting your site up and running.
• Push your address, contact info, and hours to a third-party platform like Google My Business using Location Management.