Restaurant websites: why your menu shouldn't be a PDF

The person looking at your menu is often on the sidewalk. It's starting to rain, and they're deciding between you and the place across the street. They tap "Menu." A PDF starts downloading.

Then they pinch. Then they scroll sideways. Then they lose their place, zoom out, try again. Somewhere in there, the place across the street wins.

That's the whole case against the PDF menu. Here's the longer version, and what to put on a restaurant site instead.

Why PDFs are a bad fit on phones

They're slow. A menu PDF made from a designer's print file can be several megabytes, especially with photos or fancy fonts in it. On a phone with weak signal, that's a wait. A menu written as text on the page is a tiny fraction of that and shows up almost instantly.

They zoom badly. A PDF is a printed page shrunk to fit a phone screen. To read it, people pinch and drag around a page that was never meant for a screen that size. A text menu reflows to fit the phone, so it reads like any other page.

They open somewhere else. Depending on the phone, a PDF may open in a separate viewer or download to a folder. Now the customer has left your site. Getting back to your hours or your address is one more step.

They're harder to update. To change one price in a PDF, someone has to open the original design file, edit it, export it again and upload the new one. Often that someone is a designer who did it two years ago. So the price stays wrong. A text menu is a quick edit.

What search engines see

Google can read many PDFs. But a PDF is a separate file from your page. A menu written into the page itself sits right next to your restaurant's name, your neighborhood and your hours, which makes the whole page clearly about your restaurant and what you serve.

Someone searching for a dish you're known for, plus your neighborhood, is the kind of person you want. A text menu on your own page gives search engines the clearest picture of what you serve.

What a good text menu looks like

• Sections, like the printed one. Starters, mains, sides, drinks. Same order your customers already know.
• Dish name, a short line, the price. That's enough. The description can be one line.
• Dietary notes as plain marks. "V" for vegetarian, "GF" for gluten-free, with a short key at the top.
• One menu, not five. If lunch and dinner are mostly the same, one menu with a note is easier than two pages.

If you love your printed menu design, keep it for the tables. The website version just needs to be clear.

What else a restaurant site needs

The menu is the main thing. A few others come close.

Hours, including holiday hours. Wrong hours cost you twice. Someone walks over, the door is locked, and next time they pick somewhere else. Keep the holiday hours on the site at least a week before the holiday.

Address and a map. Plus a line on how to find you if it's not obvious. "Entrance on the side street." "Second floor, above the bakery."

Links to the order and reservation apps you already use. If you take reservations through one app and delivery through another, link to them. No need to build anything new. Just make the buttons easy to find on a phone.

Photos of the food and the room. Your own, not stock. A good phone photo of a real plate in your real room does more than a perfect stock photo of someone else's food.

A phone number that works. If people call to ask about a table or a large order, make the number tappable.

How often menus change, and who changes them

Some restaurants change the menu once a year. Some change the specials every day. Before building anything, figure out which one you are, because it decides who should be making the changes.

If you change prices or dishes a few times a year, a monthly plan with a little time each month covers it. If you change specials and photos every week, you'll want more hours, or a small "today's special" box that's quick to update.

With me, the Busy plan ($279 a month, with 3.5 hours of changes) is built for places that change menus and prices often. Steady ($149 a month, 1.5 hours) fits a menu that changes a few times a year. You email the change, I make it, and I tell you when it's live.

The quick version

• Put the menu on the page as real text, not as a PDF.
• Keep hours, holiday hours, address and a map one tap away.
• Link to the ordering and reservation apps you already use.
• Use your own photos.
• Decide who updates the menu before you need an update.

I made a sample cafe site to show how this looks on a phone: text menu, hours up top, order buttons. It's a concept build, labeled as one on the work page, not a real client. What I put on restaurant and cafe sites, with prices, is on the restaurants and cafes page, and the full price list is on pricing. Builds start at $1,500.