Blog

What a restaurant website needs to take the order

Updated 19 October 2026 · Arslan Munir

Someone on a phone, outside your shop or on the sofa, wants three things: the menu with prices, whether you are open, and a way to order that finishes. They do not want a history of the restaurant, a slider of stock photographs, or a button that sends them to a marketplace. This is the short list of what the page needs if its job is to take the order, and the list of things you can skip.

Chefzi generates that page from the menu you already have, then lets you change the words and the pictures. You can also keep a site you already paid for and paste an ordering snippet into it. Either way the order has to land on a tablet that rings until the kitchen accepts or rejects it. A beautiful page that emails a quiet inbox is not taking the order.

The menu is the page

Lead with the food. Categories should match how people already order: starters, mains, sides, drinks, and the set meals or deals you actually sell. A clever regrouping that hides the dish regulars know by name will cost you orders. If the paper menu uses numbers, keep the numbers in the dish name.

Every item needs the price you are willing to honour tonight. Sizes, crusts, spice, sauces and sides that change the price are modifiers, not a note at the bottom. The ticket in the kitchen should show those choices without someone decoding a comment. A photo helps when you have a real one of the dish. A stock photo of a burger, on a curry house site, does not help, and we will not label a stock photo as your restaurant. An item can go live with no photo.

When a dish is finished, mark it sold out. The page should refuse payment for it. Taking the order and refunding it is slower than a phone call, and it is how people decide your site is unreliable. Allergen information is yours to write. The software does not invent a statement for a dish you have not described.

Hours, the phone, and what you are offering tonight

Put opening hours where they can be seen without scrolling through a paragraph. Collection hours and delivery hours can be different. Closing time for that service is the cut-off. There is no separate cut-off before you close. Holiday closures are a special day you can set for that date, for both services.

Put the phone number in the same area as the hours. Some customers will still call, and the number on the page should be the one that is answered during service. Do not publish a number that goes to a booking line nobody watches on a Friday.

Say whether tonight is collection, delivery, or both. If delivery is off, the page should offer collection rather than showing a map of areas you are not driving. The address of the shop matters for collection. A pin that is on the wrong street is a missed order even when the checkout worked. The fee and the minimum, if you deliver, have to show before payment. That decision is covered in how to set delivery fees and minimum orders.

Checkout has to work with a thumb

Most of these orders start on a mobile phone, often on a slow connection, often while someone is walking. The basket, the address check and the pay button have to be usable one-handed. A menu that only makes sense on a desktop is a menu you will watch fail.

Ask for the name and the phone number you need to cook and to call if something is wrong. Do not ask for an account, a date of birth, or a marketing opt-in before they can see the total. Card payment goes through your payment provider. Cash on collection is a switch you control, if you want it. Chefzi does not add a fee of its own at checkout, and it does not take a commission on the order.

The customer should see the total, the fee and the time before they pay. After they pay, they should see a confirmation that matches the ticket. If those three screens disagree, fix them before you print a QR code.

One link, in the places people already look

Use one ordering URL on Google, on Instagram, on Facebook and on the window. A QR code belongs on your own packaging and at the counter, for people who are already there. Do not put that code on a Just Eat bag. A second, louder link to a marketplace is how the commission comes back. Keep the marketplace apps if they bring new customers. Do not make them the only button on your own website. The longer version of that split is how to reduce delivery app commission.

If you already have a website you want to keep, you do not have to throw it away. The embed puts the menu on a page you already own, or adds an order button. If you do not have a site, or the one you have cannot take a payment, the generated website is the menu, the hours and the order button, and you can edit the sections afterwards. Your own domain can point at it. A free yourname.chefzi.co.uk address works while the domain is moving.

Test the link on a phone that is not connected to the shop Wi-Fi. Tap it the way a customer will: from Google, from the Instagram bio, and from the QR code after it has been printed. A code that still points at GloriaFood will fail when that product retires on 30 April 2027, even if the new page is perfect. The migration checklist is the order to change those links in.

What you can skip

You do not need a long “our story” above the menu. You do not need a blog on the restaurant site for its own sake. You do not need a reservation widget if you do not take reservations. You do not need five fonts, a video header, or a photograph of a city you are not in. You do not need to publish a review score you do not have permission to publish.

You do need the menu, the hours, the phone, the address, a checkout that states the fee, and a kitchen that hears the order. That is the page. The monthly fee for Chefzi is three months free, then £19 a month for cash or no-card payments, or £29 a month with online card payments through Stripe per location, excluding VAT, with no setup fee. Pricing is that number in one place. Book a call and send the menu. We would rather ask about a missing price than guess it.