Your food is good. Your website is losing you covers.
PDF menus lose restaurants an estimated 20–30% of mobile visitors who never come back. A café or restaurant website in Yorkshire costs between £79 and £499, and the single most important thing on it is a menu that people can actually read on their phone. Not a PDF. Not a photo of a chalkboard. Actual text on the page.
Why are PDF menus a problem?
Because nobody can read them on a phone. A PDF designed for A4 paper opens as a tiny rectangle on a mobile screen. The customer pinches to zoom, scrolls sideways, loses their place, gives up. They go to the chippy instead.
Google can't read PDFs properly either. Your menu items won't appear in search results. Someone searching “Sunday roast Saltaire” won't find you if your roast dinner is buried in a PDF that Google barely indexes.
For a full breakdown of why this matters, read why your PDF menu is costing you customers.
What should a restaurant menu look like online?
Plain HTML text on the page. Sections for starters, mains, desserts, drinks. Each item with a name, short description, and price. That's it. Fish and chips £12.50. Sunday roast from £14. Flat white £3.20.
It loads instantly, works on every phone, and Google indexes every word. When someone searches “vegan lunch Bradford,” your aubergine tagine at £11 actually shows up.
| Feature | HTML menu | PDF menu |
|---|---|---|
| Readable on mobile | Yes — text reflows to screen width | No — pinch and zoom required |
| Google indexes menu items | Yes — every dish appears in search | Poorly — Google struggles with PDF text |
| Load time | Under 1 second | 3–8 seconds depending on file size |
| Easy to update | Change text, done | Redesign PDF, re-upload, hope the cache clears |
| Accessibility | Screen readers work perfectly | Usually broken — no alt text, no structure |
| Allergen info | Inline labels or filter by allergen | Footnote nobody reads |
Do you need online reservations?
If you take bookings, yes. A café doing walk-ins only doesn't need it. But any restaurant that takes reservations for Friday night should let people book online.
You don't need to pay £200 a month for a booking system. A free or low-cost option — ResDiary, Formitable, even a simple Google Form — embedded on your site works. What matters is that someone can book at 11pm on a Wednesday when they're planning the weekend. If they have to call during service, they won't.
How important are hours and location?
They're the most searched-for information about any restaurant. And they're wrong on half the websites I audit. Closed on Mondays? Say so clearly. Kitchen closes at 8:30? Put it on the site. Changed your hours for winter? Update the website the same day.
Embed a Google Map. Not a screenshot of a map — an actual interactive embed. People tap it, it opens directions on their phone. A café on Bingley Road that's slightly hidden needs this more than anyone. If someone drives past because they couldn't find you, that's a lost £25 lunch.
Does food photography matter?
Massively. But “food photography” doesn't mean hiring a photographer for £500. It means taking decent phone photos in natural light, no filters, no overhead-only shots. Show the dish as a customer would see it on the table.
Three to five hero photos of your best dishes on the homepage. A full gallery if you have the shots. Avoid stock photos of food you don't serve — nothing kills trust faster than a customer walking in expecting the burger from Shutterstock.
One café in Saltaire I worked with swapped their stock hero image for a photo of their actual brunch board. Enquiries about weekend brunch went up noticeably within a fortnight.
What about Google Maps and local search?
Your website and your Google Business Profile work together. The website gives Google detailed information — your menu, your hours, your location. The Business Profile shows up in Maps and the local pack.
Make sure your name, address, and phone number match exactly between your website and Google. If your site says “The Riverside Café” and Google says “Riverside Cafe Shipley,” that inconsistency hurts your ranking. For more on getting this right, see the local SEO guide.
How much does a restaurant website cost?
A single-page site with an HTML menu, hours, location map, and contact details starts at £79. A multi-page site with online reservations, a gallery, and Google reviews integration runs £199 to £499 with Pacavita.
The return is straightforward. If your website brings in two extra covers a week at £25 average spend, that's £2,600 a year from a £199 website. Every restaurant owner in Bradford can do that maths.
For a wider look at what makes a good website for any local business, that's a decent starting point.
What to do this week
- Open your current website on your phone — try to read the menu without zooming
- Check your opening hours on the website match your Google Business Profile
- Take three photos of your best-selling dishes in natural daylight — no filters
- If your menu is a PDF, write it out as a plain text list with prices — that's your starting point for an HTML menu
- Ask your last five happy customers to leave a Google review — text them the direct link