Do you want to create a restaurant website using WordPress? If you have a restaurant, then creating a website is advantageous. A website will help you grow your business and attract customers. Restaurant businesses are great if run properly. With good food and good services coupled with a modern website, you can take any restaurant business to the next level. The question is, how to create a restaurant website?
The answer is simple! Using WordPress you can easily create a website. With the right plugin and theme, you can also manage your restaurant and open new possibilities.
In this post, we’re going to learn how to create a restaurant website using WordPress. We will be using a beautiful theme, learning how to customize different parts of the theme, learning how to add restaurant elements to the website, and having fun doing it. So let’s start and learn how to create a restaurant website!
Why create a website for your restaurant?
If you’re reading this article, then you already know the benefits of having a website for your business. For your restaurant, this could be an exciting new venture. Not only will it help you put your first step into the digital world, but it’ll also help you bring more customers. Sure, having a social media presence helps a lot. But having a fully functional and professional website for your restaurant will truly make it shine.
Creating a website, designing various pages and components, and adding various functions, do sound like a lot of work. But that’s where the magic of WordPress comes in. With the right theme and the plugin, you don’t have to worry about the design and functionality. We’ll see how easy it is just in a second.
First, let’s take a look at some of the benefits of having a website for your restaurant.
- Low advertising cost
- Improved search ranking
- Creates a strong brand image
- Stand out from the competition
- Chance to increase customer loyalty
- More possible customers and much more.
As you can see, having a website for your restaurant can be so beneficial for your business. This will help people find your restaurant through online searches. This will also increase your customer base. With so many advantages, why wait? Create a restaurant website and take your business to the next level!
Some general features of a restaurant website
A restaurant website is quite different than other business sites. There are various features that are seen on different restaurants or food websites. Based on what services you provide, you can include these features. For example, if you provide food delivery services, you can include an online ordering function on your website. This will allow customers to order food online.
Let’s take a look at some of the common features of a restaurant website.
- Food menu: Many restaurants add their menu online. If online ordering is enabled, customers can take a look at the menu and order the food item they’re interested in. In that case, the food menu is essential.
- Delivery services: Restaurants today offer delivery services. There are various customers who order food online. To fulfil this demand, restaurants have adopted delivery services. It will be very convenient for the customers if a restaurant has delivery services on their website.
- Table reservations: Table reservation option is not commonly seen in many restaurants. This is a feature where a website will have a layout of their restaurant tables and customers can reserve a table directly from their website.
- Discount options: Sometimes restaurants provide discounts on various foods. Keeping this feature on your restaurant website keeps the customers informed. However, it’s also important to mention the conditions of the discount and update the website accordingly. If your restaurant plugin has a feature where you can set the discount time duration and condition, then you don’t have to worry about spending much time on updating the discount options.
- Tips: It’s not uncommon for restaurants to add a tip option to their website. Through this feature, customers can leave tips after their meal or orders.
As you can see, some of these features might be common or unique for some restaurants. For example, many restaurants or online food-ordering businesses have a delivery service feature. So this is a common feature. But the table reservation feature is only possible if you have a physical restaurant with tables.
So what features will you include in your website? Well, for our tutorial, we will use a powerful restaurant management plugin, that will give us all that we need and much more. We will see how to implement some popular and unique features on our restaurant website.
How to create a restaurant website using WordPress
Now that you know the benefits and potential features of your restaurant website, it’s time to start building it. Creating a website in WordPress is easy enough and you can do it on your own. You don’t have to code a single line! Let’s take a look at the necessary elements we will be using on our restaurant website. These are as follows:
- Theme: For theme, we will use Blocksy. This theme has several free starter sites (demo designs) and we will be using one of those.
- Restaurant Management System: For our RMS or Restaurant Management System, we will use the WPCafe plugin. We will use its premium version. This plugin gives you almost all the features you need for a restaurant website.
- eCommerce function: To receive payment you need an eCommerce plugin. We will use WooCommerce as it is the most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress.
There will be other plugins and components on our website, such as the page builder, the Blocksy companion plugin, etc. But don’t worry about that as our theme will take care of all these. We can simply concentrate on building our restaurant website with WordPress.
Now with that out of the way, we can start building our website with WordPress. Follow the steps below and let’s get started.
Step 1: Getting proper domain and hosting
Since you’re creating a website, it is important to get a proper domain and hosting partner. Always remember to get quality hosting for your website. Otherwise, your website will have unwanted downtimes and will be slow. But if you get a good hosting partner, your site will load fast and will have maximum uptime.
For a restaurant website, if your customers want to access it, and find the site is taking too long to load, it is highly likely they will leave. That’s why get domain and hosting services from a reputed company. Visit our recommended WordPress domain and hosting services for more information.
You can get domain hosting later if you want. It is possible to build your WordPress website on localhost. Then after you’re done, you can move your site from localhost to live server.
Step 2: Installing WordPress
There are many WordPress hosting plans offered by popular domain and hosting companies. If you get one of these plans, then you’ll have WordPress pre-installed on your hosting. Otherwise, you have to install WordPress on your own. But that is also very easy. To do that, follow these steps:
- Log in to your cPanel (if you don’t have credentials, ask your hosting provider)
- Find Softaculous App Installer and select WordPress
- Then select the latest version of WordPress and set your site name and description
- Set username and password for your site
- After you’re done, click on Install
This will install your WordPress website on your hosting.
If you don’t want to go through these steps, you can ask your hosting provider to install WordPress for you. That’s the easiest way to install WordPress.
Step 3: Install a theme
Now that you have your WordPress site ready, log into your admin dashboard. This is the same username and password you’ve set during the WordPress installation. If you’re unsure, you can ask your hosting partner for help. But ensure that your WordPress admin username and password are not known by anyone else other than you.
Once you log in to your WordPress admin dashboard, it’s time to install a theme. We will be using a free theme for our site. To install a theme, hover your mouse over Appearance > Add New Theme. Now search for Blocksy on the search bar. Install the theme and activate it after it’s installed.
After you install the Blocksy theme, you’re going to see a notification that asks you to install the Blocksy Companion plugin. Install it by clicking on the “Install Blocksy Companion Plugin” button.
After the plugin is installed and activated, you should see Blocksy as a menu item on your WordPress dashboard. Click on it and then click on the Starter Sites tab. From here, choose a restaurant theme that you like. We’re selecting the Restaurant starter site.
Once you click on the “Import” button, it will launch the importer. Select the page builder and when asked about using the child theme, use it as it is recommended. This will import the starter site along with all the necessary plugins.
Once the process is complete, you can view your site. Now you have a modern and responsive restaurant website for your business- but you need to customize it with your content.
Step 4: Customizing the theme
Well, you have a stylish site for your restaurant, but you need to customize it. You need to upload your own site logo, add new pages, change the color, and so on. To keep this article simple, we’re going to advise watching our video tutorial on “Edit WordPress Header and Footer”.
This is going to show you how you can edit the header, add your logo, customize the header menu and also how to customize your footer.
Depending on which page builder you’ve chosen, you can customize your site content (texts, images, colors, buttons, etc.). We have many WordPress tutorials where we’ve shown how to customize the Blocksy starter sites. Make sure to check those out.
Step 5: Installing an RMS (Restaurant Management System) plugin
We have a website, and we have a well-designed theme. Now all that is left is to install an RMS plugin and start adding some restaurant features. For this, we’re going to use WPCafe.
This is a popular restaurant plugin for WordPress. There is a free version of this plugin that you can use. But a paid plan is required if you want advanced features (live order notification, live search, visual table representation, a special menu of the day, etc.) for your restaurant website. There are WPCafe lifetime deals as well for you to save money in the long run.
First, install the free version of the plugin. Then go to Plugins > Add New Plugin and click on the “Upload Plugin” button. Then click on the “Choose File” button and upload the compressed file for WPCafe Pro.
Once the plugin is installed and activated, you’ll see an option called “WPCafe” on your dashboard. After activation, it should directly take you to the WPCafe dashboard where you can view the analytics and report section. Since we’re just starting out, the reports won’t have any data.
Also, make sure that WooCommerce is installed. If it wasn’t installed earlier (during starter site import) then you have to manually install it. For this go to Plugins > Add New Plugin once again, and search for WooCommerce. Install and activate the plugin and it should launch a setup wizard. This is quite easy, just go through the setup process and your eCommerce setup should be ready.
Step 6: Create your food menu
Adding an online food menu has a lot of benefits. You can inform your customers about your menu and also enable online food ordering service. To create your menu first you have to create a product through WooCommerce. The WooCommerce products will be regarded as your food items.
To add a product or food item, from your WordPress dashboard go to Products > Add New. From here you can give your food a name and description, set a food image, add prices, add variations, etc.
You should also create categories for your food. Categories can be created from Products > Categories section. During product creation (or editing), you can also set categories from the right-side menu.
Following this method, create all your food categories (drinks & beverages, starters, salads, desserts, etc.) and also add your food. After this, we can create the food menu page.
To add your food menu, create a menu page. In our case, we already have a menu page from our starter template. There is a dummy menu, but we’re going to remove that dummy menu. To edit a page, while visiting it, click on the “Edit Page” on the top bar. We’re using the Gutenberg page builder here.
Now remove any dummy details and make room for your new menu. If you’re using Gutenberg, click on the ‘+’ icon and search for food. This will bring up the two blocks added by WPCafe. Select either food list or food tab. We selected the WPC Food Tab block.
After that, select a category and it will display all the food items within that category. You can select multiple categories by holding down ‘CTRL’ on your keyboard and clicking on multiple categories.
Once the block is added and one or more categories are selected, the food menu will be displayed on your page.
You can also display the food menu using shortcodes. To do that, go to your WordPress dashboard, and from there go to WPCafe > Available Shortcodes. Here you’ll find different options for the food menu. Select one (click on the Generate Shortcode button), and you’ll be able to configure that menu. During configuration, select the categories. After you’re done, click on the “Generate” button.
This will give you a shortcode. Copy this shortcode and go back to your menu page. Now open the Gutenberg blocks or Elements if you’re using Elementor. Then select the Shortcode block if you’re using Gutenberg. If you’re using Elementor select the text element. Then paste in the shortcode. After that save your changes and reload the page to see the menu.
That’s how you can create and display your food menu. Customers will also be able to order food items from here. If you don’t want people to order from here, just disable the “Show Cart Button” option.
Step 7: Set up food delivery system
To set up the food delivery system, first, we have to enable it. From your WordPress dashboard, go to WPCafe > Tools and enable the Delivery Module.
Then from WPCafe > Settings click on the Food Ordering tab. From the General Settings of Food Ordering enable the “Allow Location” option. Next, in the order type option, you can select pickup or delivery, or you can select both.
There are other options here such as the Google Maps API, order preparation days, minimum order amount, etc. Tweak these settings to your liking but ensure that “Allow Location” is enabled. After you’re done click on the “Save Changes” button.
After that, from your WordPress dashboard go to Products > Food Locations. From here, fill up the fields with the actual address and save the changes. Note: These are the addresses that the client can select when they’re picking up their orders if the pickup option is selected.
Your food delivery system is now activated. To test this, you can order from your website and see if it’s working. After the food is ordered, the customer can select if they want a delivery or a pickup.
This option appears on the checkout and cart pages. You can also display this option using the shortcode.
Step 8: Adding discount options for food
You can provide a discount for certain food items or an entire category. You can also set conditions for discounts. From your WordPress dashboard go to WPCafe > Settings > Food Ordering tab. Next, click on the Discount tab and from here you can set a percentage discount or standard discount.
In percentage discount, you can select the percentage amount, including menu items on which the discount will be applied. You can also provide discounts for an entire category from here.
In the standard discount option, you can provide a condition for the discount. For example, if the total order of a customer is equal to or greater than $100 you can provide a 10% discount. You can choose the order amount and the discount amount from here. You can also provide a standard discount message. After you’re done, click on the “Save Changes” button.
Step 9: Special menu items
You can provide a special discount for certain menu items. To do this, go to WPCafe > Settings > Food Ordering tab and click on the Special Menus option. From here, enable the Special menu feature. Now you should see more options. Here you can set the following:
- PopUp Duration: The duration or how long the special discount will last. This will show a popup message on your website.
- Special menu title: The title of the popup message.
- Include Menus: Select which food will have a special discount or specially prepared for this event
- Button Text: What the button text will be
- Button Link: Where this will lead users to when the button is clicked.
After you’re done setting all these, click on the “Save Changes” button and then check the frontend of your website. You should see the popup banner.
Step 10: Configure table reservation
You can also add the table reservation function to your restaurant website. First, you have to enable the Table Layout feature from WPCafe > Tools. After you enable it, the Table Layout option should be added to the WPCafe dashboard menu.
Next, you have to set up your reservation schedule. From WPCafe > Settings > Reservation tab select the schedule option. From here, enable the reservation multi-slot schedule. Now you can select if you want a weekly schedule or an everyday schedule. For our case, we’re selecting the “Everyday Schedule” option. From here set the start and end time. Also, set the schedule name and seat capacity.
Most importantly set the Maximum Guest Number.
After that, save your changes and move on to the table layout customization.
Click on Table Layout from WPCafe. Here you can customize your table layout settings. You can select seat capacity, the color of the table, text colors, etc. You can also select the size of the restaurant. Then you can upload a background image for where your restaurant tables and chairs will be placed.
After that, scroll down and you can customize your table layout. You can add corner tables and round tables. Then add chairs. After adding chairs, remember to connect (place close to the table so that the chair touches the tables) those chairs to the tables.
After that save changes. Now if we look at it from the frontend, we can see a form.
You can also customize this form from WPCafe > Settings > Reservation tab and the Form Customization option.
All the reservations will appear in the WPCafe > Reservation listing.
Step 11: Adding tip options
You can also enable the tipping option. Here customers can leave a tip. To access these settings go to WPCafe > Settings > Food Ordering tab and open Tipping. Here you have to first enable tipping then more settings will be revealed to you.
Step 12: Enable notifications
You can also enable notifications for whenever an order is placed. From the WPCafe Settings, choose the Food Ordering tab and click on the Live Order option. From here enable the order notification feature. You can also enable sound notification and add your own custom order notification sound.
Once you’re done, save the changes.
That’s it, you now have a modern and professional restaurant website. There are more features to talk about, but we’ve discussed some of the important ones. For example, you can add a feature where the customer can order by scanning a QR Code of a food item. There are more options to explore.
So go through the plugin’s settings, and design your web pages accordingly. You’ll be running a successful restaurant website in no time!
Conclusion
That brings our restaurant website tutorial to an end. We’ve learned how to create a restaurant website using WordPress. As you can see, it’s so easy to create a website using WordPress. We added several restaurant features to our website using this plugin. If you’re using the right combination of a theme and plugin, you can create any website with WordPress.
In order to keep our tutorial short, we didn’t go into deeper details about the website design customization. The page design takes a bit of time that’s why we used a starter site from Blocksy. This saves a lot of time as we can import a professionally designed theme just in seconds. If you want more restaurant management options, you can also explore our list of best WordPress restaurant reservation plugins.
We hope that this tutorial was helpful for you and you managed to set everything up pretty easily. Let us know in the comment section what are your thoughts about WPCafe and any restaurant website.
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links and we may receive a small commission if you purchase something by following them. However, we recommend services/products that we believe good to serve your purpose.
