Orders and bookings that come straight to you
Hungry customers decide fast. They search on Google Maps, look at your photos and menu, check that you are open, then order, call or book. If your menu is a blurry photo on Instagram or a PDF that takes a minute to open, they pick the next place.
We build restaurant websites for those few seconds: a menu that opens quickly on mobile data, prices in PKR, and one tap to order on WhatsApp, call or reserve a table. The same approach works for restaurants, cafes, bakeries, home kitchens and caterers in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad and every other city.
What does a restaurant website need?
A restaurant website needs a fast mobile menu with prices, a direct way to order or book, and opening hours and a location that match your Google Maps listing. Add real food photos, recent reviews and a catering enquiry form, and keep the menu as text on the page, not as an image or PDF. Everything else is a bonus.
For a quick start, a simple menu site fits our WordPress website in 24 hours offer. For online ordering, payments and delivery areas, our website development service builds the full setup.
Why should your menu be a web page, not a PDF?
- Speed: text loads in a moment on mobile data, while large menu images and PDFs often stall.
- Search: Google can read dish names such as “chicken karahi”, “beef nihari” or “red velvet cake” when they are text.
- Easy updates: change a price or mark a dish as sold out in a minute, without a designer.
- Clear structure: sections such as starters, BBQ, karahi, desserts and drinks, with a price, a one-line description, serving size and spice level for each dish.
- Urdu where it helps: add Urdu dish names if your customers search that way.
There is a bonus. Google’s help page on the menu editor says Google may transcribe menu data from your website, and you can opt out. A clean text menu on your site can therefore feed your Google listing as well.
Should you take orders directly or through delivery apps?
Delivery apps bring new customers, but every order through them carries a commission, and the customer relationship stays with the app. During the 2020 dispute between restaurant owners and foodpanda, Dawn reported commission rates from about 8% for a multinational chain to upwards of 35% for smaller eateries, and restaurant owners said they did not get access to their own customer data for orders the app delivered. Rates depend on each restaurant’s agreement, so check your current contract.
Most restaurants do best with both: stay on the apps for discovery, and give regular customers an easy way to order direct.
- A website order page with cash on delivery and wallet or card payment. Our guide to adding JazzCash and Easypaisa to WooCommerce covers online payment.
- A WhatsApp order button on every dish that sends the item, quantity and address to your number.
- Delivery areas and charges listed by area, so nobody has to ask.
- Automatic order confirmation on WhatsApp with an expected delivery time. Our guide to the WhatsApp Business API in Pakistan explains how this works.
If you take orders through WooCommerce, our Ecom Studio plugin can show your dishes as clean product grids built with Elementor.
How do restaurants get found on Google Maps?
Google has a help page written for restaurant profiles. The parts that matter most:
- Menu: use the menu editor to add sections, dishes, descriptions and prices, or upload a photo of your menu.
- Photos and videos of your interior, exterior and the dining experience, updated when the menu or decor changes.
- Hours: regular hours plus special hours for holidays and events. For most Pakistani restaurants that includes Ramadan timings and Eid days.
- Order and reservation links: Google lets you add up to 10 links per category for food orders and reservations, and mark one as the business preferred link (Google help). Make your own website order page the preferred link.
- Posts and replies: share offers and events, and reply to reviews.
Our guide on how to rank on Google Maps covers categories, consistency and reviews in more detail, and our SEO and AI search optimization service can manage it for you.
How do you get more Google reviews without breaking the rules?
Ask every happy customer, every day. Google’s review help page says you can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code, so print the QR code on table cards, bills and delivery bags. Two rules matter. Google’s contribution policy prohibits offering incentives such as payment, discounts or free goods in exchange for a review, and it also bars discouraging negative reviews or asking only happy customers. A “free dessert for a 5-star review” offer breaks that policy. Reply to every review, good or bad, politely and quickly.
What builds trust with diners?
- Your own photos of the food, kitchen and seating, not stock images.
- Your food authority licence. The Punjab Food Authority issues business licences that are valid for one year, and the Punjab Pure Food Rules, 2011, published on the PFA website, say every licence must be displayed at a prominent place within the licensed premises (rule 31(6)). Showing your licence number on the website too is a simple trust signal. Rules differ by province, so check with your provincial food authority.
- Clear delivery times, areas and charges.
- A named contact for catering and events.
How should caterers and bakeries handle event enquiries?
Weddings, mehndi functions, corporate lunches, birthdays and custom cakes are high-value orders, but they often arrive as a one-word “price?” message. A short enquiry form fixes that. Ask for:
- Event date, city and venue.
- Number of guests.
- The menu or package they are interested in.
- Budget range.
- Name and WhatsApp number.
Send each enquiry to WhatsApp and email at the same time, and reply with a quote the same day. Our lead generation funnels service builds forms like this with follow-up messages, and our free invoice generator for Pakistan helps you send a clean quote or invoice.
Common restaurant website mistakes
- The menu is only an image or a PDF.
- Website prices that differ from the counter or the delivery apps.
- Different opening hours on Google, Facebook and the website.
- Offering a discount or a free item in return for reviews.
- No way to order direct, so every customer goes to an app.
- Autoplay videos and heavy sliders that slow down the menu page.
- No delivery area information, so every customer has to ask.
What content brings customers?
- Ramadan pages for sehri and iftar deals, published before the month starts.
- Eid and wedding season catering packages.
- Pages for signature dishes, with photos and the story behind them.
- One page per branch, with its own address, hours and map.
Each page answers a real search and leads to an order, a booking or an enquiry. To plan a budget, see our guide to website prices in Pakistan.
