What do diners want from a restaurant website?
The best restaurant website answers four questions within seconds of loading on a phone: what do you serve, are you open now, where exactly are you, and how do I get a table.
Everything else, the story of the chef, the interior photos, the press mentions, comes after those four. A diner comparing three places on Sukhumvit at 7pm will not dig through a slideshow to find your closing time.
So if you already have Google Maps, Instagram and a delivery app listing, what does a website add? It is the one place you control completely: the full menu in Thai and English, the booking path you prefer, group and event enquiries, and details the platforms squeeze out, such as allergen notes or parking. It also gives Google a clear source to check your hours and menu against. Design fashions come and go, and you can read about current web design trends elsewhere on this blog, but for restaurants the four answers always come first.
What the best restaurant websites do differently
These are public Bangkok restaurant sites we checked at the time of writing (September 2026). They are not our work; each is here for one idea worth borrowing. Sites change, so look at them yourself.
Thipsamai: the basics on the home page
The famous pad thai shop on Mahachai Road puts its address, phone number and opening hours, including the weekly closing day, near the top of the home page. Its dishes are listed as text, with a vegetarian pad thai named clearly, and a language switcher includes Korean and Chinese versions. A tourist standing outside on their closing day learns it in seconds.
Somboon Seafood: Thai first, with a table booking item in the menu
Somboon's site opens in Thai with a switch for English, Japanese and Chinese. Its main menu has a food menu page, a table booking item and a branches page, which is exactly the order a diner thinks in when a restaurant has several locations.
Sorn: menus and reservations as the first two words
This southern Thai fine-dining restaurant on Sukhumvit 26 leads its navigation with Menus (classic, seasonal and beverage) and Reservations, which has its own page. The address sits in plain text on the home page.
Supanniga Eating Room: one booking link per branch
With several branches, Supanniga gives each one its own reservation link, so a diner books the right location. Its menus are downloadable files per branch, which is the trade-off discussed in the next section.
Should your menu be text or a PDF?
A PDF or a photo of your printed menu is quick to upload, and plenty of good restaurants do it. It still costs you in four ways:
- Phones: a PDF opens in a separate viewer, often tiny, and inside the LINE or Facebook in-app browser it may not open at all.
- Search: text on a page can be read by Google and matched to searches like "crab curry Silom". Text inside an image usually cannot.
- Translation: visitors who read neither Thai nor English can use their browser's translate button on a text menu. It does nothing for a photo.
- Accessibility: screen readers handle text well and images of text poorly.
Structuring a bilingual menu
Group dishes by section, as on the printed menu. For each dish, give the Thai name, an English name that describes the dish rather than transliterating it, the price and short notes: spice level, contains nuts or shellfish, vegetarian, and halal where your kitchen can genuinely confirm it. Put the Thai and English on separate language versions of the page, so each reads cleanly, rather than cramming both into every line. Keep a downloadable PDF as well if your staff like to share it on LINE, but make the text menu the main version.
Update prices in one place. If the website, Google and the delivery apps each show a different price for the same dish, diners notice.
Bookings, groups and events
There are three common ways to take reservations through a restaurant website, and many places combine them.
An online booking tool
Third-party reservation platforms give you a booking page or widget with live availability, confirmations and reminders. They suit busy restaurants that turn tables several times a night. You sign up with the provider directly and pay their fees; the website links to or embeds their booking page. Check the provider's current pricing page before choosing.
A simple enquiry form
For a neighbourhood restaurant or a cafe, a short form (name, phone, date, time, party size, notes) that arrives by email and to your phone is often enough. Staff confirm by phone or chat. It costs nothing per booking, but someone must answer promptly.
Chat buttons for quick questions and groups
In Bangkok many diners would rather send a LINE message or a WhatsApp than fill in a form, particularly for birthdays, office dinners and groups of ten or more. Put those buttons on every page, and give group and event bookings their own short page: private room capacity, set menus, deposit rules as you set them, and a form that asks the questions your manager always asks anyway.
Whatever you choose, show one clear booking button on the phone layout. Two competing buttons, one for a platform and one for a form, confuse people.
How do delivery apps, Google and your website work together?
Most Bangkok restaurants now live on three or four platforms at once: a Google Business Profile, a delivery app or two such as GrabFood and LINE MAN, Instagram or Facebook, and the website. Diners move between them without thinking about it. Trouble starts when they disagree.
The usual mismatches are hours (a holiday closure updated on Instagram but not on Google), menus (a new dish on the delivery app that the website never shows) and prices. Treat the website as the master copy and update the others from it, including the opening hours in your local business schema markup. A short routine helps:
- Keep one document with your current hours, holiday closures, menu and prices.
- Change the website first, then Google, then the delivery apps, on the same day.
- Before long holidays such as Songkran, post special hours on all of them at once.
On the website itself, add "Order delivery" links that go straight to your listing on each app you use, rather than to the app's home page. Diners who prefer delivery get there in one tap, and dine-in guests are not distracted by it. The apps change their merchant terms from time to time, so check each app's current merchant page for fees rather than relying on what a friend was charged last year.
Photos, speed and accessibility
Photos that sell food honestly
Shoot your real dishes, plated as they are served, in natural light. Heavy filters and stock photos of food you do not cook set up a disappointment at the table. A few strong photos of signature dishes, the room and the entrance (so people recognise it from the street) beat a gallery of fifty.
Speed
Diners often look you up on mobile data while already out. Resize and compress every photo, avoid a full-screen video on the home page, and let lower images load as people scroll.
Location for Bangkok diners
Give the full address in Thai and English, an embedded map, the nearest BTS or MRT station and walking time if you know it, and parking: whether you have it, validate it, or not at all. Taxi drivers often want the Thai address, so make it easy to copy.
Access for everyone
Readable text sizes, strong contrast and buttons large enough to tap all help older diners and anyone reading on a small screen. Our guide to website accessibility covers the checks in more detail, and our website layout guide explains how to arrange a home page so the menu, hours and booking button come first.
Guest data and PDPA
Booking forms and newsletter sign-ups collect personal data, so Thailand's PDPA applies. Link a clear privacy notice from each form, ask only for what you need, and use a separate, unticked box for marketing consent.
How to make a website for your restaurant
If you want to make a website for your restaurant, this is the order we suggest. It works for a single cafe and for a group with several branches.
- Step 1
Collect the facts
Current menu with prices in Thai and English, hours and holiday closures, address in both languages, nearest station, parking, phone, LINE and WhatsApp contacts.
- Step 2
Choose how bookings work
An online booking tool, a simple form, chat buttons, or a mix. Decide who answers and how fast your team can realistically reply.
- Step 3
Plan the pages
Home, menu, reservations, groups and events, location, about. Add a page per branch if you have more than one.
- Step 4
Photograph the food and the room
Real dishes in natural light, plus the entrance so guests recognise it.
- Step 5
Design mobile first
Menu, hours, location and booking reachable in one tap from the phone home screen.
- Step 6
Build and test
Check the Thai and English versions on real phones and inside LINE and Facebook links; send test bookings.
- Step 7
Connect the platforms
Link your delivery app listings and update Google Business Profile so hours and the website link match.
- Step 8
Keep it current
Update the website first whenever the menu, prices or hours change.
Getting help
A single restaurant or cafe with a menu page, a location page and bookings handled by chat buttons or a link to a reservation tool usually fits our Starter package, from THB 10,000 (indicative, one-time): up to five pages, custom design on WordPress, mobile-first, with contact, WhatsApp and LINE buttons, on-page SEO and PDPA cookie consent.
Groups with several branches, full bilingual menus and event enquiry forms tend to need the Business package, from THB 30,000, which covers up to 15 pages in English and Thai with forms and booking or enquiry flows. The written quote sets the final price, and a typical project takes around 15 days from the agreed brief to launch.
Our page on restaurant website design explains how we plan these sites. When you have your page list ready, ask for a website development quote. A few related reads: website navigation best practices for structuring the menu bar, our roundup of the best hotel website design examples if your restaurant sits inside a hotel, and our guide to moving a finished design from Figma to WordPress if a designer has already drawn your site.
Reviewed by
Who builds your site
Litesh Dhir
Builds and ranks the websites: the systems behind the 17 client sites whose Search Console numbers we publish.
More about usKeep reading
Sources
- Thipsamai (viewed September 2026)
- Somboon Seafood (viewed September 2026)
- Sorn Fine Southern Cuisine (viewed September 2026)
- Supanniga Eating Room (viewed September 2026)
- Grab Thailand: merchant information
- LINE MAN (LMWN)
- Ministry of Digital Economy and Society: Personal Data Protection Act B.E. 2562 (2019)