Most restaurants have a website. Very few have one that does any work.

The difference isn't design. It's whether the site can answer what a hungry person asks at 17.40 on a Wednesday, and whether it can answer in a format both Google and ChatGPT can read.

Here are the nine things that actually decide it in 2026, ordered by how much they move.

1. The menu has to be text, not a PDF

This is the single most important thing on the list, and it's also the one most people get wrong.

If the menu sits in a PDF or an image, search engines can't read a single dish. That means when someone searches for "vegetarian dinner Aarhus" or "steak near me", you don't exist, even though the dish is on your board.

It also means the guest has to zoom and drag around on a phone to read it. Most won't bother.

How it should be: every dish as plain text with name, description and price. Then Google can index it, ChatGPT can quote it, and the guest can read it with a thumb.

2. Opening hours in a format machines understand

There's a difference between writing "We're open Tuesday to Sunday 11.30 to 20.30" and putting those same details in as structured data.

A human reads the same thing. Google doesn't. Only in the second case can it say "Open now, closes 20.30" next to you in the search result.

It's a small field that decides an enormous amount. Someone searching for dinner at 19.00 doesn't click a place where they can't see whether it's open.

Don't forget bank holidays. That's exactly when people check, and exactly when most sites are wrong.

3. Table booking without a middleman

Booking portals take commission on guests who already knew your name. That's money you pay for the privilege of serving people who were coming anyway.

A booking button on your own site brings that traffic home. Portals still have a role for guests who don't know you. But the person searching your name should never go through a middleman.

4. The site has to be readable by ChatGPT

This is new since 2024, and it's where I see the biggest gap between restaurants right now.

More and more people don't ask Google. They ask ChatGPT: "Where can I eat well in Aarhus tonight?" And the AI answers with three places.

If you're named, you get the guest. If you're not, you don't exist in that conversation.

What decides it:

  • The information has to be structured, not just written on the page
  • The content has to answer questions directly rather than describe yourselves
  • Your name, address and phone number have to match everywhere online
  • The site mustn't block AI crawlers in robots.txt, which a surprising number do without knowing

5. Mobile first, not mobile friendly

Eight in ten look on a phone. Yet most restaurant sites are still designed on a big screen and then squeezed down.

You feel the difference immediately. If the phone number isn't tappable, the menu isn't readable without zooming, or the site takes five seconds to load on mobile data, you lose people before they saw a single dish.

6. Speed isn't technical, it's guests

A site that loads in seven seconds loses roughly half its visitors before they see anything at all.

The two usual culprits in this trade are photos straight off a camera, several megabytes each, and a background video on the homepage that nobody asked for.

The food should look good. The images just need compressing first.

7. Photos of the food and of the room

Guests choose with their eyes, and they choose two things: whether the food looks good, and whether they can picture themselves sitting there.

That means photos of both. The dishes, yes, but also the room, the tables and the atmosphere. Especially if you're cosy and the competition is a chain.

Stock photos of a generic burger work against you. People can tell, and they immediately assume the food isn't what it looks like either.

8. Address, parking and directions

It sounds trivial. It isn't.

A large share of searches before a restaurant visit are practical: where are they, can I park, how long does it take to get there. If the site can't answer, Google Maps does it for you, and then you depend on your profile there being correct.

Write it on the site. Including where to leave the car.

9. Multiple languages, if you get visitors from abroad

If you're somewhere with tourists, they search in their own language. A German family in Denmark searches in German, not Danish.

It isn't a question of translating the site. It's that keyword research has to be done in each language separately, because the phrase a German searches is rarely the direct translation of the Danish one.

How to check your own site in ten minutes

Go through the list with your phone in your hand:

  • Can you select a dish on the menu with your finger? If not, it's an image
  • Search your name on Google. Does it say "Open now" next to you?
  • Ask ChatGPT where to eat well in your town. Are you mentioned?
  • Time how long the homepage takes on mobile data, not wifi
  • Try booking a table. How many clicks, and did it go through a portal?

If three or more of those fail, small adjustments aren't what's needed.

What it costs to fix

Some of it can be fixed in an afternoon. Opening hours as structured data, compressing images and writing the menu in as text are work, not a rebuild.

Other things require the site to be rebuilt. If it's built on a template that can't handle structured data, you can't bolt it on afterwards.

You can see what a new website costs, or read more about websites for restaurants specifically.

And if you just want to know where your current site stands, send me the link. You'll get an SEO test and a design draft of what it could be. It costs nothing.