Most articles about "restaurant website examples" show you nice photos of food and call it inspiration. That doesn't help you. I've done redesigns of over twenty Danish restaurant websites in the past year, measured old against new SEO on a scale of 0 to 100, and I'd rather show you what was actually wrong and what worked instead.

What the good examples have in common

Whether it's a French bistro in Aalborg or a pizzeria in Hjørring, the same five things recur on the sites that actually convert:

  • Booking or ordering is visible from the first second, not hidden in a submenu
  • The menu is real text on the page, not a PDF or a screenshot
  • The photos are the restaurant's own, not stock images
  • Opening hours and address are crystal clear and match Google
  • There's one clear next step in each section, not three choices at once

It sounds obvious. But most restaurant websites I open miss at least three of the five.

The menu as a PDF or screenshot: the most expensive mistake

At a French bistro in Aalborg both menus were locked in PDFs. Google can't read them properly, and on a phone the guest has to zoom and drag. At a restaurant in Aalborg the entire menu was 11 screenshots, not text. Two of their own screenshots were even cut off mid-content, so one dish was missing its price and the cocktail list stopped halfway.

When I put the menus out as plain text, the bistro's indexable text went from 1,274 characters to over 10,000. At the second the whole site's indexable text was 226 words in total. Two hundred and twenty-six. Google had almost nothing to work with.

The fix is boring: write the menu as text on the page with Menu schema on top. Then both the guest and Google can read it.

Opening hours that contradict themselves

I see this surprisingly often. At a French bistro the opening hours weren't on the site at all, and the three external sources I found disagreed. At a Mexican restaurant there were three different Friday closing times across the restaurant's own pages. At a restaurant in northern Denmark the opening hours page said Friday until midnight, while the booking page said 23.00.

When a guest meets a locked door, she doesn't come back, and she writes a bad review about it. If you aren't a hundred percent sure of your hours, get them confirmed before they go on the site. A wrong number is worse than none.

The phone number that rings the wrong place

At a restaurant in northern Denmark the site's only tel: link was in the footer on every page, and it pointed to the number for a completely different restaurant with the same owner. Every time a guest tapped "call", they rang the sister restaurant.

It's a two-minute fix, but nobody had spotted it. Check your own footer number now.

Photos: use your own, even the rough ones

Guests can tell the difference between a real photo and a stock image, even when they aren't thinking about it. At several prospects the restaurant's "photos" were Canva collages. At a French bistro their only HD material was buried in videos in the media library, which I pulled single frames out of. At a pizzeria with no website at all, the best material was the owner's own Facebook photos of guests outside the shop, not of the food.

When your own photos show people and atmosphere rather than plates, that's the story. Then the copy should say the same thing.

Covid text still sitting there in 2026

At a French bistro the homepage still said "We open on 3 June!", and the events page mentioned "during the reopening". Small things, but they tell the guest nobody has touched the site in years. Go through your own homepage for dates that no longer apply.

What I don't promise

I don't promise you'll hit first place on Google, or that ChatGPT will start recommending you. Nobody can guarantee that. I fix the mistakes that are actively holding you back, and build the site so it has a chance.

Frequently asked questions

What should a restaurant website contain as a minimum?

Menu as text, correct opening hours, address, phone number and a clear way to book a table or order food. That matters more than five subpages about the restaurant's history.

Why is a PDF menu a problem?

Google indexes PDF text poorly, and on mobile the guest has to zoom and drag. When I converted the bistro's PDF menus to text, the site's indexable text increased eightfold.

Do I need professional photos?

Yes, but your own always beat stock photos. Bad photos of the food damage credibility more than no photos.

How long does it take to build a restaurant website?

A simple one-pager can be ready in a couple of weeks. A site with custom copy, booking and SEO typically takes four to eight weeks.

How do I check whether my own site has a problem?

Open it from your phone as a stranger would. Count the clicks until you could have booked a table. Tap the footer phone number. Check whether the opening hours match everywhere on the site.

Finally

I don't do brand awareness. I do revenue, rankings and websites that sell. So next time you're looking at restaurant website examples, ask yourself: is this page selling anything, or does it just look like something?