A regular customer wants your mixed grill tonight. She has ordered from you twenty times. She opens a delivery app, finds you, and orders. You pay the app's commission on a customer you already won years ago.
That is not a disaster. Delivery apps do real work: they find new customers, handle payment and often supply the rider. But if every order passes through someone else's platform, you are renting your own regulars.
A good restaurant website fixes a narrower problem than most people think. It is not there to replace the apps. It is there to give people who already know you a faster, cheaper path to order, book and find you.
What people want from a restaurant website
Watch how people actually use restaurant sites and you will see the same four tasks, almost always on a phone:
- See the menu and prices.
- Order, or book a table.
- Find the nearest branch and whether it is open now.
- Check that the place looks good enough to spend money on.
The chef's story and the Instagram feed come second. Build for those four tasks first.
Above the fold: what the first screen should show
On a phone, the first screen should let a hungry person act without scrolling:
- One real, appetising photo of your best-selling dish. Not a stock burger.
- Two big buttons: "Menu" and "Order now" (or "Book a table" if you are dine-in first).
- Open or closed right now, with today's hours.
- Call and WhatsApp within one tap.
- Branch selector if you have more than one location, so prices, delivery areas and hours match where the customer is.
Skip the autoplay video hero. It looks great on office Wi-Fi and crawls on a phone in a parked car. Our guide to website speed in plain language explains why this costs orders.
The digital menu: stop using PDFs
The PDF menu is the single most common restaurant website mistake. It is slow to open, needs pinching and zooming, is handled poorly by search compared with a normal page, and goes out of date the moment you change a price.
A proper digital menu is a normal web page:
- Organised by category, with a sticky category bar so people can jump to "Grills" or "Desserts".
- Each item with a clear name, a short description, price, and a photo where it helps.
- Tags that matter for your cuisine, such as spicy, vegetarian or "contains nuts", with a note to ask staff about allergies.
- A simple admin screen where your manager changes prices, hides sold-out items and adds seasonal dishes in minutes, without calling a developer.
- The same menu powering the QR code on your tables, so there is only one source of truth.
Direct ordering vs delivery apps
This is the question restaurant owners ask us most. The honest answer is that it is not either/or.
| Delivery apps | Your own ordering channel | |
|---|---|---|
| New customers | Strong. People browse and discover you there | Weak. People must already know you |
| Cost per order | Commission and sometimes marketing or service fees, per your contract | Your delivery cost, payment fees, and the cost of the system |
| Delivery fleet | Often provided, depending on the app and area | Your own riders or a delivery partner |
| Customer data | Mostly stays with the app | Yours: phone numbers, order history, preferences |
| Control | Their rules on ranking, promotions and presentation | Your menu, your prices, your offers |
| Effort | Low setup | You must promote it and run delivery well |
Commission rates vary by app, city, contract and negotiation, and they change. Do not plan using a number someone mentioned. Take the actual rate from your own contract.
How to do the maths for your restaurant
For one typical order, write down:
- Your average order value.
- What the app deducts on that order, from your contract and statements, including any marketing or service fees.
- What the same order would cost you directly: rider cost or delivery partner fee, payment gateway fee for card orders, and packaging.
The difference, multiplied by the number of orders your regulars place each month, is roughly what direct ordering can save. Then subtract the monthly cost of running your own system and the cost of promoting it. If the result is clearly positive, direct ordering is worth building.
The hybrid that works for most restaurants
Keep the apps for discovery. Then give every app customer a reason to order directly next time: a card in the bag with your WhatsApp number and a direct-order offer, a loyalty stamp, or free delivery within a short radius.
Over time, regulars move to your channel while the apps keep bringing new faces. Check your app contracts first for rules on pricing and promotions.
Two levels of direct ordering
Level one: menu to WhatsApp
The customer builds an order on your menu page, and the site turns it into a clean, pre-filled WhatsApp message with items, quantities, branch and address. A staff member confirms by reply.
It is cheap, quick to launch and familiar to customers in Egypt and the Gulf, but it struggles at peak hours. Our guide on WhatsApp and your website covers the details.
Level two: a real ordering system
Cart, delivery zones with their own fees and minimum orders, automatic closing outside working hours, cash on delivery and online card payment, order status, and a kitchen or branch dashboard that shows incoming orders with a sound alert.
This is a small platform, not a page. It needs testing, training and an owner on your team. For payment options, read accepting online payments in Egypt.
Branches, Google Maps and local SEO
Most restaurant searches are local: "koshary near me", "seafood in Alexandria", "breakfast in Riyadh open now". You win those mostly on Google Maps, and your website feeds it.
- One page per branch with the address, embedded map, hours, phone, delivery areas and branch photos.
- A Google Business Profile for every branch, with the name, address and phone written exactly as on your site.
- Link your menu from your Business Profile. Depending on your country, you can also add links for ordering and reservations, so point them at your own site where possible.
- Ask happy customers for reviews and reply to them, including the bad ones, calmly.
Our guide to showing up on Google Maps walks through the setup.
Common restaurant website mistakes
- PDF menus and photos of printed menus. Hard to read on a phone, and weak or invisible in search.
- Old prices online. Customers who see one price and pay another feel cheated.
- Accepting orders when the kitchen is closed. Your system must know your hours and holidays.
- Hiding the delivery area until checkout. Show it early.
- Forcing account creation before a first order. Ask for a name, phone and address, nothing more.
- Instagram as the only website. Great for mood, poor for menus, ordering and search.
What it costs
A menu, branch and booking-request site falls in the company website range, roughly 15,000 to 60,000 EGP. A full ordering system with zones, payments and branch dashboards is a custom platform, roughly 40,000 to 250,000+ EGP. Both ranges are indicative and depend on scope.
Questions people ask
Is a QR code menu enough without a website?
A QR menu serves people already at your table. A website also catches people searching for you. If the QR code opens your website's menu, one setup does both.
Should I stop using delivery apps once I have my own ordering?
Usually not. Apps are strong at bringing new customers. Use your own channel for regulars and review the numbers every few months.
Can customers pay online on my restaurant website?
Yes, through a payment gateway that supports cards and, in Egypt, wallets. Many restaurants keep cash on delivery too, since plenty of customers still prefer it.
Do I need an app instead of a website?
Most restaurants do not, at least at first. A fast mobile website works without a download. Consider an app once you have many loyal repeat customers.
How often should the menu be updated?
Whenever something changes. With a proper admin screen, that takes minutes.
A sensible first step
Start with the menu. Put it on a fast page your team can update, connect it to your table QR codes and Google Business Profile, and add WhatsApp ordering. The first few months of orders will teach you a lot.
When you are ready to plan the next step, you can book a short meeting with us or see our work.