Skip to content

Website advice

Put your restaurant menu in readable website text

A beautiful photo of a printed menu can still leave someone zooming in, sliding sideways and losing their place. Before changing the whole restaurant website, check how much work it takes to read the food you already have on it.

THE SHORT ANSWER

Give customers a readable web version of the menu. A print download can sit alongside it. Keep a clear source for updates and check the route from choosing a dish to the ordering or booking option the restaurant actually supports.

Try choosing a meal on your phone

Use your actual public menu and pick a meal someone could realistically order. Locate the description and the information the restaurant normally provides beside it. Do not make up prices, ingredients or dietary claims for the exercise.

Notice every time you have to zoom or move sideways. Check whether the section heading disappears while you compare dishes. Ask another person to try without telling them where everything is. Their hesitation can show you what your own familiarity hides.

Keep the finding specific. Saying that the description needs zooming and the price column then disappears gives the designer something to work with. Saying the menu looks old mostly gives them permission to change its appearance.

Check the page on more than the phone used to approve the design. Different screen sizes are a useful reason to revisit the layout. You are looking for observable reading problems, not an excuse to throw away a working site.

Use actual text for the information

W3C recommends actual styled text rather than an image of text when the same presentation can be achieved. Text can be resized without the same loss of clarity, and its appearance can be adjusted for different reading preferences.

For a menu, that suggests readable category names, dishes and descriptions on the web page instead of a photograph as the only menu. Keep the layout simple enough that a narrow screen does not separate a dish from the information that belongs to it.

A PDF can remain available for people who want a copy to print or save. The question is whether the download is the only practical route. Do not assume every PDF is inaccessible or that an HTML page automatically solves every reading problem.

Keep decoration around the food information rather than making the information decorative. A quiet page with usable text still leaves plenty of room for real food photography elsewhere. The photograph should show a dish the restaurant actually offers.

Make the version and next step clear

If the restaurant genuinely uses separate menus, name them clearly. Lunch, takeaway and a special event may need different information. Several unlabeled files called menu.pdf leave the visitor to decide which one applies.

Have the person responsible for the food confirm the text. A designer can arrange the information but should not guess ingredients, availability or ordering conditions. Keep a record of who approved the current menu and which destinations need the same change.

Follow the ordering or reservation button. An outside service should open the correct restaurant location and the relevant action, not leave someone on a general landing page. Check it rather than assuming the old link still works.

Do not describe a table request as a confirmed reservation unless that is what the process delivers. Similarly, a menu should not imply that delivery or collection is available when the business has not confirmed it.

Decide how the next update happens

Before approving the work, ask who will maintain the menu and what they need to supply. Agree whether changes also need to reach a downloadable copy, an ordering provider or another page. Those places do not necessarily update together.

Ask the person maintaining it to try an ordinary update in the appropriate preview or test process. They should know how to check the public result, not just how to press Save. Retain a usable previous version in case the wrong file is replaced.

Our VEYRA restaurant concept is an independent fictional design example, not a restaurant client or endorsement. A real restaurant version needs its own approved menu, photographs and operating details. The concept can support a design discussion; it cannot supply those facts.

You may only need a better menu page. Put the reading problem and update process into the project scope before deciding that the homepage, booking setup and every other working page need replacing.

Further reading

LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS

Wondering what we’d change about your website?

No technical brief needed. Tell us about the business, and we will confirm the scope and price. No payment with the brief.

Start my website brief