Why a showcase website, even for a small place
The phone often rings for the same questions: are you open on Sunday, do you have vegetarian dishes, where can we park? A showcase website answers them once and for all, at any hour, and gives a first picture of your place to people who do not know you yet. For a small place, it does not need to be a big website: a single well-built page is often enough to reassure people and make them want to come.
Build my website is designed for that starting point. You choose a professional template, edit it in an online editor, right in your browser, and get a preview link to share. All you need is a ServOrbit account with a confirmed email address. The full process, from template to publishing on a domain, is described in the article Build my website: create a free website, then publish it on your domain. Here, we focus on what is specific to the food and drink trade.
Choosing a template suited to food and drink
In food and drink, images do much of the work. Look for a template that leaves room for big photos: a view of the dining room, a signature dish, a sunny terrace, a window full of pastries. Then look at its structure rather than its colours. Texts, images and colours can be changed in the editor; the sequence of sections, on the other hand, sets the rhythm of the page. A good base has clearly separated sections — what you serve, your hours, where to find you, how to reach you — that a visitor spots at a glance.
Think about phones too. Many of your visitors will open your website in the street, a few steps from your door, or from their sofa while deciding where to have dinner. Before you decide, look at the template preview on a small screen and check that headings stay readable and that blocks do not pile up. If you hesitate between two templates, nothing stops you from trying both: an account can hold up to three active free websites. When a template suits you, click « Choose this template ».
The must-haves of a restaurant or café website
- What you serve: a few signature dishes or drinks, described in your own words, with prices if you want to show them.
- Your opening hours, day by day, with exceptions: closing day, holidays, reduced hours.
- Your address, and a sentence on how to get there: a landmark, a nearby street, where to park.
- Your phone number, clearly visible, to book a table or place an order by phone.
- Real photos, your own, taken in good light: the dining room, the dishes, the front of the shop.
- A few lines about your place: your story, the atmosphere, and useful information on dietary needs.
The content that matters for a restaurant or café
What you serve. There is no need to copy the whole menu: it changes, and a long list reads poorly on a phone. Highlight five or six dishes or drinks that represent you, with a short description written by you — where a product comes from, how something is cooked, a family recipe. If you show prices, keep them up to date: an old price disappoints more than a missing one.
Your hours, exceptions included. List each opening day, and state the exceptions clearly: the weekly closing day, annual holidays, hours on public holidays. A customer who finds the door closed after reading your website does not always come back.
Address and directions. Write the full address, then describe the way in words: “opposite the post office”, “first floor, entrance through the courtyard”, “free parking in the next street”. You can add a link to your location on an online map service, but the sentence still helps people looking for you on foot.
How to reach you. Your phone number should be found without searching. Say whether it is for booking a table, ordering takeaway or both, and at what times you answer.
Atmosphere and dietary needs. A few sentences are enough to say who you are: how long you have run the place, what matters to you, what people feel when they walk in. Also point out vegetarian dishes, gluten-free options or common allergens, and invite customers to ask you. This advice also applies to other independents: it is covered, from another angle, in our article on the free pro website for artisans, consultants and coaches.
What to show, and where
Scroll the table
| What to show | Why | Where to put it on the page |
|---|---|---|
| Signature dishes and prices | It is what people look for before going out | Right after the opening photo |
| Hours and exceptions | Avoids a closed door and cuts down on calls | In a dedicated section, repeated at the bottom of the page |
| Address and directions | Helps people find you without hesitating | Near the hours, with a link to an online map service |
| Phone number | Lets people book or order by phone | At the top of the page, then again at the end |
| Photos of the room and dishes | Makes people want to come and shows the atmosphere | Large at the top, then in a gallery |
| Dietary needs | Reassures customers with restrictions | Alongside the dishes |
Photos that look like you
Take your photos yourself, during the day, near a window: natural light flatters a dish far more than a flash. Plate the dish as you would for a customer, wipe the table, and photograph the room when it is tidy. Avoid illustration images that do not come from your place: a customer who discovers a different room from the one in the photo feels misled. Finally, check that no sample image from the template is left on screen, and keep your originals in a folder.
From template to preview link
Choose a template
Open the Build my website page, browse the templates and click « Choose this template » when one suits your place.
Sign in to your account
Sign in to your ServOrbit account, or create it, then confirm your email address if you have not done so yet. The online editor then opens.
Add your content
Replace the template texts with your dishes, hours and address, change the images, adjust the colours, add or remove sections. The editor is shown in French, English or Spanish, and in English for other languages.
Launching your website and getting it known
Start with your team: send the preview link to the people who work the floor and run the kitchen. They will quickly spot a wrong price, a forgotten time slot or a dish that is no longer on the menu. Then show it to your suppliers and neighbouring shops, and to your regulars: they are the ones who will pass it around.
Finally, share the link on your social networks and in your messages. In a place where people sit down, a QR code works well: generate a QR code of the link with the tool of your choice, then print it on your menus, table cards or shop window. A customer waiting for their coffee thus discovers your hours and your specialities.
If you are starting from scratch and want a more general approach, from choosing the template to going online, follow our step-by-step guide to creating a free website.
Before printing a QR code
The preview link is tied to your free website. If the website is deleted — after 30 days without opening the editor, or when you publish it on your domain — the link no longer leads anywhere, and neither do the printed QR codes. For menus you will keep for a long time, think about your own address from the start.
Keeping your website alive and up to date
A free website is deleted after 30 days without opening the editor, and each opening pushes the deadline back. A restaurant website needs touching up anyway: the menu changes with the seasons, hours change during the holidays, a new dessert arrives. Make these updates a habit: when you open the editor to change a dish, you also keep your website alive.
No backup is kept after a deletion. So write your texts — dish descriptions, hours, the story of your place — in a separate document, and keep your original photos in a folder. If the website were to disappear, you would lose a layout, not your content.
When the restaurant wants its own address
A preview link is enough to show your website; an address in your name is remembered and can be printed on a card or a menu without fear of it disappearing. To make the move, you need a domain name and web hosting. Once the hosting is active, open your client area, under « My websites », and click « Publish on my domain ». Then copy your website's share code, paste it into the editor of your domain's site, and publish. Your website is then online on your domain, and the free version is deleted.
Each step is detailed in From your free website to your own domain, and summarised in the article introducing “Build my website”.
