Regarding Your Restaurant’s Website

This post was published more than a few years ago (on 2010-11-27) and may contain inaccurate technical information, outmoded thoughts, or cringe takes. Proceed at your own risk.

Dear Restaurant,

I really enjoy your comestibles! But your website makes it a little hard to find the information I need.

When I go to a restaurant website, I’m usually out somewhere, hungry, accessing it from my phone, and I’m looking for these three things, in this order:

  1. Hours, so I can see if you’re open right now.
  2. Address, so I can plug it into my GPS.
  3. Maybe the menu, if I’m really planning ahead.

First of all, let me thank you for having a website that’s easy to access on my iPhone. No annoying Flash stuff. Just a nice clean web page. Totally awesome. Because those Flash-based websites that every other restaurant seems to have won’t even display on my iPhone, and not knowing whether or not they’re open, I’d probably give up and try to find another restaurant with a viewable site. So, kudos to you!

However, your hours of operation don’t seem to be anywhere on your site. Could you please add those?

As for the address: Maybe there’s an address listed under your “Contact Us” page, but that leads me to wonder if that address is only a mailing address, and isn’t where your restaurant is actually located. Could you please put your location’s street address on your “Directions” page? Sure, there will be some people who will still read through your detailed and well-researched directions, but in this GPS-enabled age, letting folks quickly plug the address into their device of choice can save much frustration.

As for the Menu, I’m sure that’s great the way it is. Thanks!

With much love from a potential customer,
Mark