Restaurant Website Examples: What I'd Copy and What I'd Skip From 4 Real Sites

Plenty of diners open your website on a phone before they walk in or call. Most lists of restaurant website examples show you pretty sites. I read four real ones the way a hungry person does: can I find the menu, the hours, a phone number and a way to book or order?

Short answer: copy the sites that put the menu on the page as readable text, with the hours and a tappable phone number near the top and one clear button to book or order. Skip menus that live only in PDF files and a phone number tucked in the footer. Of the four real sites I read, each had something worth copying and most had one thing I'd change.

Why do diners look at a restaurant's website first?

The surveys I could open say diners do check, with limits. All three are American, none proves anything about one restaurant, Menufy sells online ordering, and the MGH survey is a 2019 marketing agency study. I read them as a nudge, not proof. The reasons diners give for being put off (hard to navigate, hard to read) are things they meet on the first screens.

Whether a restaurant needs its own site at all is a different question, and I answered it in whether a restaurant needs a website. This post assumes you have one. Your Google Business Profile checklist covers where many diners arrive. The restaurant website is where they act.

What would I copy and what would I skip on four real restaurant sites?

I read the text of each page on 5 November 2026, in the order the page presents it. So I can tell you what comes first, not how it looks, and I didn't test any of them on a phone. Two sites are in Toronto and lead the list. The other two (London and Chicago) are outside Canada, but they're well known and a diner in Toronto could still land on them. I'm not saying any site gains or loses orders. These are good restaurant website examples to learn from, not a ranking.

Richmond Station, Toronto. The phone number, (647) 748-1444, comes first in the header. Reservations sit in the nav, there's a book button, and the lunch and dinner hours and the address are on the home page. I'd copy all of that. I'd skip the menu setup: the lunch, dinner, dessert and wine menus are links to PDF files. I didn't open the files, so I can't say what they show, but no prices are on the page itself. The one menu that is a web page is the Chef's Tasting Menu, and I'd ask whether that page should be the model for the rest.

Canoe, Toronto. The Reserve button opens a booking panel, and a Find a table button goes to OpenTable. Lunch and dinner hours run Monday to Friday, weekends are plainly marked closed, and the address and phone number are there. The menus page is text on the page with prices, and only the group menu, the full wine list and the full bar menu are PDFs. I'd copy that, because a long wine list is the sensible place for a file. It's a fine-dining room that takes bookings, so it needn't copy a takeout site. It's the closest to what I'd do.

Dishoom, London. View menus and Book a table are at the top, and the menu page is plain text with a price on each dish. A Make a reservation link and a Group bookings link sit right under the All Day heading. I'd copy that: someone who has just picked a dish can book. I couldn't see a phone number, hours or an address in the part I could read, and the text was cut off, so I can't say they're missing. With many cafés, one set of hours wouldn't fit anyway. That is a chain's problem, not a small restaurant's.

Kuma's Corner, Chicago. Order Online shows in the nav, in the hero and at the bottom, and Reservations in the nav link out to booking pages for two locations. The menu is text in tabs (burgers, mac and cheese, sandwiches, appetizers, salads) with a full-menu PDF as an extra, which is the version I'd copy. I'd skip the phone number sitting only in the footer. In the text I could read there were no hours on the home page and no prices in the menu text, though prices may load some other way. If you want the general rules behind these verdicts, I wrote up what a first screen has to do.

Does copying a good example work for a small restaurant?

Only if the example is your kind of place. A famous site isn't your site. A booking-led dining room, a counter that takes orders and a restaurant with a big catering page need different first screens. Here is how I'd match them:

• Booking-led (Richmond Station, Canoe): phone, hours and the book button first.
• Walk-up or call-ahead (Kuma's Corner, Moto Moto Grill): the menu with prices and a call or order button first.
• Catering-heavy: its own page and its own way to enquire.

What I read can't tell you results, how a site looks or how fast it loads. I didn't test speed. And you may not need much. If a diner can find the menu, the hours and a phone number in a couple of taps on your current site, small changes may be enough. If it is more than that, a redesign that keeps your pages is an option, not a must.

Where do I fit, and what did I do on Moto Moto Grill?

Moto Moto Grill, an East African BBQ restaurant in Thornhill, Ontario, got its first website from me, built from scratch. The menu is text on the page with prices, and the dishes join to their prices by leader lines. A day picker has a Today option and marks the closed day. A Call Us button sits near the top, and on a phone a bottom bar holds Menu, Call and Map. Catering has its own page. The site gets 200+ visits from Google every month. I can't say which part did what.

If you want a restaurant site built this way, that's my website design for restaurants work, and the Moto Moto case study is on that page. My fixed package prices are public. The price covers exactly what the card lists, and anything extra is quoted up front, in writing, before any work starts. If your site already passes the phone test below, you don't need me.

What to do this week:

• Open your site on your phone and find today's hours, the menu and a number to call. Count the taps.
• Check that your name, address and phone match your Google Business Profile exactly.
• Look at whether your menu is text on the page or only a PDF.
• Want a second pair of eyes? Ask me for a free website review.

Related posts

• Do restaurants need a website? What delivery apps don't do
• Why your homepage first screen loses calls
• My Google Business Profile checklist for Toronto small businesses
• My website design for restaurants page

Sources

• BrightLocal: Local Consumer Review Survey (published 11 February 2026)
• Menufy: 5 Things Costing Your Restaurant Orders (published 11 June 2026, Dynata survey April 2026)
• PR Newswire (MGH): Survey: Nearly 70% of U.S. Diners Say a Restaurant's Website Has Discouraged Them from Visiting (29 August 2019)
• The four sites, pages as I read them on 5 November 2026 (they may have changed): Richmond Station, Canoe, Dishoom and Kuma's Corner
• Moto Moto Grill, my own build, home and menu pages read on 5 November 2026

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