Web design for hospitality
Somebody is deciding where to eat in the next twenty minutes. They want the menu, the hours and a way to reach you, on a phone, without pinching to zoom. We build that properly first, then fit the rest to your venue. From £470+VAT, one fixed price and one date in writing.
A designer calls you back within 48 hours. Nothing to pay until you have seen it working.
The usual state of things
Where a venue website quietly loses covers
None of it is unusual. It is what a site looks like when it was set up in a quiet week and the kitchen moved on.
The menu is a PDF
The single most common mistake in this trade. It downloads, it opens sideways, and the chef changed two dishes a fortnight ago.
The hours are wrong
Hours are the first thing people check. A bank holiday nobody updated turns a booking into a locked door.
The Google listing carries everything
For many venues the profile gets more views than the site. Left half filled, it still sends people somewhere vague.
Nobody can see the food
Two dark photographs of an empty room. Food sells the table, and the good shots are sitting on a phone.
Booking is a dead end
A button marked book a table opens a blank email, or a system cancelled last year that still sits in the header.
The questions all come by phone
Allergens, parking, dogs, high chairs, a set menu for twelve. Answered twenty times a week, written down nowhere.
What we get right first
The menu, the hours, and how to reach you
Three things decide whether somebody walks in. What you serve, whether you are open, and how quickly they can ring. Everything else is secondary, so we build those three first and build them well.
Menus change constantly, so yours is real text you can edit yourself, not a PDF you have to send us. Hours are marked up so Google reads them correctly, bank holidays included.
- A menu that reads on a phone, never a PDF
- Prices and specials you can change in minutes
- Structured opening hours, bank holidays included
- Tap to call, and where to find you
- The questions you answer daily, written down once
Your Google Business Profile counts as much as the site
For a small venue it often does more work than the site, and we would rather say so. We set the profile up alongside the build, with the same hours and the same menu link, so the two agree.
Photography sells the food, and we do not shoot it
No stock image of a burger will sell your burger. Either you supply your own, or a photographer is arranged separately and paid direct. If the budget is not there, we will say which shots matter most.
How we scope it
We start from what you actually need
Plenty of venues need a handful of pages, a good menu and a phone number that gets tapped. That is a perfectly good website, not a lesser one, and nobody here will push you past it. If you do want more, we can handle it, and you will hear the price before you agree to it.
In every build
The parts we never leave out
- Designed for your venue, never a template
- Mobile first, tested on a phone
- A text menu you can update yourself
- Opening hours structured properly
- An accessible build, contrast and keyboard included
- Technical SEO, schema and speed in the build
- Domain in your name, every login handed over
Only if it suits you
Quoted separately, never assumed
- Table booking, or a link to the system you use
- Deposits and card payments for larger parties
- Online ordering or collection for a takeaway
- Live chat or WhatsApp, if somebody will answer it
- Vouchers, a small shop or a customer login
- Integration with your till, diary or booking provider
None of these are inside the £470. They are separate pieces of work with their own price, agreed in writing before anything starts. Say no to all of them and the site is still a proper site.
Where it depends on the venue
Options, not a shopping list
Some venues want more than pages and a phone number, so here is the range we can handle. None of it is bundled in and none of it is pushed. Each one is a separate piece of work, scoped and priced on its own on top of the site, so the £470 start price never quietly includes something you did not ask for. Smaller things, a menu laid out to be read on a phone in a dark room, or a gallery grouped by room rather than dumped in one pile, are part of the page work itself, in when you want them and left out when you do not.
Table booking that keeps the system you have
Most venues already run a booking system and already pay for it. We connect the site to that one rather than selling you another. If you take bookings by phone and want to keep it that way, we will say so.
Deposits on large parties
Hold a card against parties over a certain size, or against the December bookings that decide your quarter. It is the cheapest defence there is against a table of twelve not turning up.
Gift vouchers
Sold from the site and redeemed at the till. Worth doing if you already sell them over the bar and want the November and December trade without the paperwork that comes with it.
Online ordering and collection
Takeaway, click and collect, or a Sunday roast taken in advance. This is a build in its own right rather than a plugin bolted on, and it is only worth doing if the kitchen actually wants that trade.
Allergen and dietary information
Kept somewhere you can update it yourself, marked up so a phone reads it cleanly, and written so front of house is not the only line of defence. This one is a legal duty as well as a courtesy.
Private hire and events
Functions are usually the most valuable booking you take and the worst served by a website. A proper enquiry route that asks the questions you actually need answered beats a general contact form every time.
Menus you change yourself
A way to swap the menu over without emailing anybody a PDF. Specials move weekly in a lot of kitchens, and a site nobody on the team can update goes stale inside a fortnight.
More pages later
A seasonal menu, a second site, a rooms page once you have rooms. Priced per page, so the site grows at the pace the venue does rather than all at once up front.
Not sure which of these you need? Tell us what happens now when somebody wants a table on a Friday night. We will say which would earn their keep, which would just sit there, and if the honest answer is none of them we will say that too.
Pricing
Hospitality websites from £470+VAT
At that end, roughly four to eight pages, custom designed rather than pulled from a theme. A bigger menu, more locations or any of the optional pieces move the figure, and you get the real number at the callback.
Starting at
One payment, not a subscription that rises without warning.
Get your fixed quoteNothing to pay until you have seen the site working.
FAQs
Fair questions, answered straight
Can I change the menu myself when the specials change?
Yes, and that is the point of building it in real text rather than as a PDF. Prices, dishes and a sold out line are edited in minutes from a phone, and we show you how before launch. You are not paying us every time the fish changes.
Do I need a table booking system, or is a phone number enough?
Plenty of venues take bookings on the phone and do perfectly well. A system earns its place when no-shows cost you, when you turn tables on a Saturday, or when people try to book at eleven at night. If it does, we either link the provider you already use or build a form, quoted separately from the £470.
My Google listing gets more views than my website. Is a site still worth building?
For a lot of small venues the Google Business Profile does more day to day work than the website, and we would rather say so. The site is what the profile links to, where the full menu and the real hours live, and the one thing you own outright.
Can you photograph the food for us?
No, we do not shoot photography, and food is the one thing a stock image cannot fake. Either you supply your own images, or a photographer is arranged separately and paid direct. If the budget is not there, we will tell you which shots matter most and how to take passable ones on a phone.
Tell us about the venue.
Send the kind of place it is, how people book now and what the site needs to do. A designer calls you back within 48 hours with a fixed price and a delivery date.