Guide

What a restaurant website actually needs

By Joel Marie Riego de Dios · 2026-08-27

Most restaurants in the Philippines run entirely on a Facebook Page, and for a lot of them that genuinely works. Before spending anything on a website, it is worth being honest about what a website adds that a Page does not.

What a Page already does well

A Page handles the things a restaurant needs most often. People message you to ask if you are open. You post today's specials and regulars see them. Reviews accumulate. Someone tags you in a photo and their friends find you. None of that needs a website, and a website will not replace it.

If you are choosing between maintaining a Page well and having a neglected website, keep the Page.

What a Page cannot do

Three things, and they are the whole argument.

Your menu is not readable. The most common way a Philippine restaurant publishes a menu is a photo of a printed one, or a PDF. On a phone, both mean pinching and dragging around an image to find whether you serve something. A menu that is actual text reflows to the screen, can be searched, and can be read aloud by a screen reader. It also means Google can read your dishes, which is how you turn up when someone nearby searches for the thing you make.

Nobody decides what your customers see except you. A Page post reaches a fraction of the people who follow you, and which fraction is not your call. A website has no algorithm in the middle.

You do not own it. A disabled Page takes the menu, the hours, the photos and the reviews with it. This is uncommon, and it is unrecoverable when it happens.

The four things yours must get right

Everything else is optional. These are not.

1. The menu, as text. Prices included. If prices change often, that is an argument for text rather than against it: editing a line is faster than redesigning an image.
2. Hours, including which days you are closed. The single most searched thing about a restaurant. Put it where it is visible without scrolling.
3. The address as a link that opens Maps. Not an image of a map. Someone reading on a phone should be one tap from directions.
4. A phone number that dials when tapped. Most reservations in this country still happen by call or by Messenger, not through a booking form.

That is the whole requirement. A restaurant site that does those four things well beats one with a reservation system nobody finishes.

What you probably do not need

Online ordering. If you are on GrabFood or Foodpanda, they handle the payment, the rider and the disputes, and they already have the customer. Building your own ordering flow means handling all three yourself to save a commission you may not be losing much to yet.

An app. People will not install an app for one restaurant.

A blog. Unless you actually want to write one, which is a different decision.

What it costs

The website itself can be a one-off. Hosting a site like this is free on Cloudflare Pages or Netlify, genuinely, with no trial that expires. A .ph domain is the recurring cost, usually a few hundred pesos a year, and you can start on a free subdomain and add one later.

The number worth watching is not the build cost. It is whether anyone updates the menu six months from now. A site you can edit by changing a line of text gets updated. One that needs the person who built it does not.