Ask a restaurant owner how diners find them and most will say word of mouth, regulars and a good spot. All true. But the decision about where to eat tonight often happens on a phone, and it rarely starts with your name.
Dineplan, the South African restaurant booking platform, seated 15 million diners from 3.5 million bookings over the 2025–26 summer season. Its data shows that 79% of users begin their search broadly: by what they feel like eating, by area, by specials, and by which restaurants have tables open. Not by a particular restaurant. 13% of reservations were made on the same day people planned to eat out, and most bookings were made between 11am and 1pm (IOL).
Picture that diner. It's lunchtime, they're at their desk, and someone suggests seafood tonight. They search, scroll, open a few places, and book the one that makes the decision easy. Your website's job is to be that place. Many restaurant websites aren't built for it. They're built for people who already know the restaurant.
Say what you serve, in the words people search for
A diner searching "seafood restaurant Hout Bay" or "breakfast near Durbanville" is matching on cuisine and area. If your website's home page is a beautiful photo, your logo and the word "Welcome", there's very little for that search to match.
Write it plainly, near the top: what kind of food you serve, where you are, and what you're known for. "Wood-fired pizza and Italian classics in Stellenbosch, with a kids' corner and a garden for summer evenings" tells a diner, and Google, more than any tagline.
The menu matters even more. A menu on a web page, as text, is something people and search engines can read. A photographed menu can't be read by search engines at all, and a PDF is slow to open on a phone, awkward to read and often out of date. We look at this in more detail in is your menu readable on a phone?
Show the specials, and keep them current
Specials are one of the ways diners search. A lunch special, a Tuesday burger night, a winter soup-and-bread deal or a set Sunday menu gives a hesitating diner a reason to choose you today.
But specials only work if they're current. A "Summer specials" banner in July tells a diner nobody is minding the website, and they'll wonder what else is out of date. Put your specials on their own clearly marked section, and make it something you can change yourself in two minutes, so it actually gets changed.
Make "can I get a table?" a one-step answer
If 13% of bookings are made on the day, a large share of your potential diners are deciding within hours. If the only way to book is to phone during service, when nobody answers, or to send a message and wait, that diner books the restaurant that confirmed them in under a minute.
Give them a way to book a table on your website, or at least a WhatsApp button that a staff member actually checks. (We looked at what unanswered enquiries cost in how many bookings are you missing after hours?) For large groups, functions and year-end parties, make the enquiry easy too. In Dineplan's data, the first full week of December was the busiest of the season and Valentine's Day was the single busiest day. Both are worth planning for on your website weeks in advance, not the night before.
Answer the practical questions before the diner asks
Diners deciding between three places will often choose the one that answered their question without a phone call. Put the answers on the website:
- Trading hours, including public holidays and any days you close
- Parking, and whether it's safe at night
- Children: kids' menu, play area, high chairs
- Dietary needs: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, halaal options
- Licensed or BYO, and your corkage charge
- Accessibility: step-free entrance, accessible bathroom
- Payment: card, cash, tap to pay
- Booking policy: whether you take bookings, and for how many
Every one of these is something a diner would otherwise have to phone about, or decide not to bother.
Think about who you're paying to reach your own customers
Delivery apps bring orders, and for many restaurants they're worth it. But they come at a cost, and the Competition Commission has looked at it closely. Its Online Intermediation Platforms Market Inquiry, which reported in July 2023, found that independent restaurants were paying higher commission fees to the main delivery platforms than restaurant chains, and that commissions are typically passed on to customers as menu surcharges. It directed the platforms to develop commission models more reflective of a restaurant's sales, and barred chains from dictating which delivery platform their franchisees use (BusinessTech).
You don't have to leave the apps to act on this. Many of your takeaway customers are regulars who already know you. A simple way to order for collection on your own website, or on WhatsApp, gives them a direct option. They pay your menu price, and you keep the relationship. Direct orders aren't free to run, since card payments carry fees and someone has to manage the orders, but they're costs you control.
Let the food and the place do the persuading
Your website is the one place where you control the pictures. Use real photos of your actual dishes and your actual room, taken in good light. A diner wants to see what arrives on the plate and what the table by the window looks like on a Friday night. Stock photos of generic food undermine the one thing a restaurant website should prove: that this place is real and worth the trip.
Show who's behind it too. A line about the chef, the family that runs the place, or where the bread comes from gives a diner a reason to choose you that a list of dishes can't.
Connect it to Google
Many diners will meet you on Google Maps or in search results before they reach your website. Your Google Business Profile should link to your website, show the same hours and phone number, and link to your menu. When the details match everywhere, diners trust them, and it's easier for Google to be confident it has the right information.
The test
Open your website on your phone, on mobile data, and pretend you've never heard of your restaurant. Someone has just suggested your type of food tonight. Within thirty seconds, can you tell what you serve, where you are, whether you're open, what the specials are, and how to get a table? If not, that's the work. It isn't a redesign. It's making the decision easy.
How SiteHub can help
SiteHub builds restaurant, café and takeaway websites around exactly this: what you serve and where you are, stated plainly; your hours, location and practical details where diners look for them; and real photos of your food. Your .co.za domain, business email and hosting are included, and you see a live preview of the finished website before you pay anything.
The tools in this article are optional add-ons, so you choose only what your restaurant needs: a phone-friendly digital menu with a QR code for your tables, daily specials you update yourself, table bookings, WhatsApp ordering and online ordering for collection. The calculator shows what your setup would cost. SiteHub is a Trusted Partner of FEDHASA.