Restaurants & hospitality
Help the guest decide. Then make booking easy.
A restaurant website has to work between other plans: before a dinner reservation, on the way across Austin, or while someone compares private dining options. I design the experience around the menu, the occasion, and the action that brings a guest closer to your table.
Strategy, design, and development with Lawson Bickerstaff.
Featured work: Manuel's, Austin
The decisions that matter
The menu should never be the hard part.
Beautiful photography sets expectations. Useful details close the gap between interest and a visit. Guests need current menus, hours, directions, and clear links to reserve or order. Event planners need a different path, with enough information to decide whether to inquire about a group.
Menus made for a phone
Organize dinner, brunch, drinks, and specials as readable content. An optional downloadable menu can support printing, but the main experience should not depend on pinching a PDF. Assign someone to keep prices and availability current.
Reservations and ordering
Keep the restaurant’s existing booking and ordering systems when they work. Give each action a clear label, test the handoff on mobile, and avoid a prominent button that sends guests to a closed or outdated service.
Private dining and events
Separate group inquiries from table reservations. Include verified capacity, available spaces, event types, and the information your team needs to respond. Publish only details the restaurant has confirmed.
A location guests can find
Make the address, regular hours, holiday updates, and directions easy to locate. Align the website with the restaurant’s Business Profile. Useful location content and accurate structured data help describe the business; they do not guarantee visibility.
Relevant work
See the decisions in the Manuel’s website.
Manuel's
A structured, mobile-first site that puts menus and reservations one tap away and lets the food carry the design.
Read the Manuel's case studyHow we work
A clear scope before the first page is built.
01
Inventory the guest journeys
List menus, reservations, takeout, private dining, events, and gift cards. Choose which actions deserve top billing and which need their own pages.
02
Let the restaurant lead the design
Use the actual room, food, and brand as the visual reference. Size photography for the web and keep essential information available while images load.
03
Rehearse the visit
On a phone, find a dish, check hours, reserve a table, and locate the restaurant. Review ordering and event inquiry paths as separate tasks before launch.
Questions before you start
The practical details.
Can you work with our existing reservation platform?
The Manuel’s project includes a Resy reservation handoff. For another restaurant, I review its current booking or ordering provider first. Simple links and supported embeds are different scopes from a custom integration, and that distinction goes into the proposal.
Do you provide restaurant photography?
Photography requirements are planned with the website, but a photo shoot is not implied by the website packages. We can use your approved images and identify the shots a photographer would need to capture.
Can staff update menus and hours?
We agree on the update workflow before the build. If staff need to edit content themselves, content management must be included explicitly in the scope. A custom-coded site should not leave the team unsure how to change a price.
Useful reading
Restaurant Website Design: What Actually Drives Reservations
Plan a restaurant website around the guest’s decision: mobile menus, photography, reservations, hours, directions, private dining, ordering, and local search.
Read the guide7 Signs Your Restaurant Website Is Costing You Customers
Check seven common restaurant website problems, from unreadable menus to confusing reservations. Use simple guest tasks to identify what needs attention.
Read the guideYour next step
Tell me what your website needs to do.
Send your current site, the customers you want to reach, and the problem you want to solve. I’ll help define a useful scope and a clear next step.