5 Successfully Designed Restaurant Websites

Everyone has a love for a particular type of food or maybe you’re like me and enjoy trying many different kinds. It is a great idea to reach out to the web when running a successful restaurant. Especially if you live in a popular tourist area, college town, or simply want to give your potential customers more information about why they should dine with you.

As a traveler myself, when planning a trip I usually like to find out what restaurants are in the area and the easiest way to do that is to reach out to the web. Or if your restaurant is in a college town, consider an influx of people during certain times of the year and the ages those groups might be as a starting point to building your new website. Here are a few I thought were very effective:

1 | Restaurant Alma

One of the most important uses for a restaurant’s website is the address and hours. How many times have you wanted to make reservations or check the hours of operation to find 5 minutes later, buried in a bunch of pages, only a phone number? This website offers up all the essential information anyone would need to know right off the bat and does it in a classy, simple and effective fashion. Today, designers have so many technology options that sometimes it is a challenge to be simplistic in their designs.

Flash
You’ve probably been to many websites that utilize Flash; a fabulous asset to any designer’s arsenal, but a dangerous one. In this example, the designer uses Flash very effectively to bring the site to life, without giving the user a headache while trying to find what they are looking for. Flash should only enhance your website, not confused your viewers.

Elegance
A restaurant’s main appeal of course is its food, but what generally brings customers in at first is its’ ambiance and atmosphere. Alma is a 4-star restaurant and it’s site design shows it. Simplicity is a key element in elegance.

2 | Brasa

While looking through Restaurant Alma’s site, I noticed the owner also has another restaurant in the metro area. Both well designed! I particularly like this site’s attention to details. Little details can really give that extra something to a website’s overall feel. I particularly enjoyed how the background gave a historic feel to the design and allowed the main content to come forward. Beautifully done.

Home Cooking
When first looking at this restaurant’s website, I immediately thought “home cooking” This was reflected by the images of the food, the orignality and hand-made feeling some of the graphics gave off, and the friends page of the website. In the friend’s section, the site includes different suppliers they work with. I love knowing there are restaurants out there whose attention to fresh, quality product is in sight for the world to see. The more upfront you can be with your customers the better.

3 | Pizza Luce

This website stood out to me not only for it’s design, but also for it’s unique characteristics.  If you click on “our story” you’ll see customer testimonials. What a great idea! Many designers do this to promote their work, but it is also a great idea for businesses too! What are your customers saying? Let possible diners hear what the word on the street is when it comes to your restaurant.

Creativity & Food
Since creativity is their main focus when it comes to pizza, Pizza Luce’s website also picks up this splash of creativity and originality with torn paper edges and beautiful line drawings. Oh, and in case you were wondering, their Baked Potato Pizza is to die for!

4 | Mona Lisa’s

This restaurant can be found on the main drag in Eau Claire, WI. In my college days, I spent a summer at Mona’s waiting for extra money. Their customer base tends to be many creatives and folks who can appreciate quality art. Mona Lisa’s main focus was atmosphere & service. When you enter the site, you can tell right away the type of person that might frequent this restaurant. Also, notice there aren’t many photographs of their food. This could be for a few reasons, the most important one being they didn’t want to focus their attention on the food, but rather other aspects of the restaurant (even though their food is spectacular).

Honesty First
On the tour page, they portray their restaurant exactly how it is when you visit. They are honest with their customer. They don’t make it look better than it really is. You’ll find this often happens when restaurants show images of their food and atmosphere. To build a good relationship with a customer, you want to show them exactly what they are going to get. Don’t let them down ahead of time!

Flash
This is a great use of flash as well, although it is a bit more edgy than Alma’s website, it loads quick, is easy to understand how it functions, and serves a purpose. It gives the viewer a virtual tour, literally! It fly’s you through the restaurant, to be sure not to give everything away, but connects with the viewer in a more interactive, 3-d fashion.

5 | California Pizza Kitchen

Show off your product! People love to see what they are going to get when they visit your restaurant. California Pizza Kitchen’s designer did a fantastic job at bringing the viewer into the site by attractive and delicious looking samples of their food. Photography is an extremely important part of any food industry’s visual promotions.

Interested in reading more about food photography? Check out Still Life with…

Hungry yet?? Visit AllRecipes.com for a wide selection of easily searchable cuisine! My recent favorite is Honey-Lime Enchiladas.

What are your favorites?

Post a website link and give 2 reasons why you believe it is well designed/developed.