What Is It About Restaurant Websites?

David Chang's Momofuku has a great website for its restaurants:<p><a href="http://www.momofuku.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.momofuku.com/</a><p>Everything is pretty stripped down and simplified. No gratuitous use of flash.<p>I also like their use of reservations, for the most part the system is set up to treat everyone as equals, so its not like a celeb can just come in:<p>"In March 2008, Chang opened Momofuku Ko, a 12 seat restaurant that takes reservations six days in advance, online only, on a first-come-first-served basis, without regard to social status or income. The highly limited seating, along with Chang's popularity in New York, has caused a furor, generating frustration for both influential and ordinary people who have failed to secure a reservation"

A few weeks ago a post of the same nature as this was posted. It's worth noting: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1130419" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1130419</a>

Here is a restaurant website for a UK based chain that we just launched (in Dec 09).<p><a href="http://giraffe.net" rel="nofollow">http://giraffe.net</a><p>I feel its both attractive and functional. Its primarily supposed to be a website (i.e used from a normal web browser) but will work fine on your iphone.<p>There is no flash but we've used jquery extensively for 'flashiness'.<p>There is also prominent twitter/flickr and facebook engagement throughout.<p>There are menu's (web based and pdf choices), offers and locations. Try googling for 'giraffe menu' - the menu is the top hit.<p>We spent a while fine tuning the location finder <a href="http://giraffe.net/restaurants" rel="nofollow">http://giraffe.net/restaurants</a> which uses the google API to provide 'a nearest list' functionality. Once you chosen a restaurant it will also provide you with a list of other restaurants close to your choice.<p>The site www.usabilitypost.com did a feature on the location finder as we've also done something cool with the location search box.<p><a href="http://www.usabilitypost.com/2009/11/30/search-dropdown-hybrid-box/" rel="nofollow">http://www.usabilitypost.com/2009/11/30/search-dropdown-hybr...</a><p>The idea behind the site is simple. Get people to the restaurants. We've had a lot of feedback that suggests that it does just that and we're quite proud of the result.

Here's a restaurant web site that I recently used when deciding where to eat with friends. While it wouldn't win any design awards, it had exactly what I needed - a menu, an image of the location, and an address.<p><a href="http://www.gaborbrothers.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.gaborbrothers.com/</a><p>A lot of local businesses don't get my business because they don't have or want a web site, and I don't use the yellow pages. A decent web site is becoming increasingly important IMO.

I can see how small, local businesses fall into the trap of all-flash, all-hard-to-actually-use. But what about a high profile, nationally known restaurant like The French Laundry. Why does their site suck so much?<p><a href="http://www.frenchlaundry.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.frenchlaundry.com/</a>

My biggest complaint, among many, is that their ubiquitous Flash intros have a "skip intro" button -- <i>inside the Flash animation</i>. Why do I have Flashblock, again?

Does a website have any effect on the success of a restaurant or other local, offline business?<p>Restaurant websites are frustrating for me (and you ;-), but do they matter to anyone that doesn't read HN?

As with most things, form trumps substance when you're selling websites to a local business. They want to have a sexier website than their competitors. Their competitors all have sites with big Flash intros and cool animations and stuff. This is what your layperson cares about when viewing your portfolio; they don't care about functionality across platforms, they don't care about accessibility or immediacy of pertinent information. They just want something that looks "pretty", and even "pretty" usually just turns into useless gobs of Comet Cursors, background music, and Flash.

Most of the fx that restaraunts want to do on their website could be done with jQuery. The <a href="http://www.frenchlaundry.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.frenchlaundry.com/</a>, for example, is simply a bunch of fade in/out's and a few picture slideshows.

My hunch is many websites are made 1) with a small budget or 2) by a family member or friend who has a pirated copy of a WYSIWYG web dev app (usually flash).

Sounds like there is some money to be made here.

I'll never understand the complaint in scenario #2. Use the device in your hand for what it was originally intended, and CALL them.