Restaurant Websites
Free Restaurant Website vs Freemium Website Builder
A restaurant website that comes with your menu software is generated from the menu, hours and photos you already keep there: little to design, little to forget to update, but also little control over layout. A freemium website builder lets you design any page you like at no cost to start, but you build and update the menu and hours yourself, and the features a restaurant needs most — your own domain, no builder ads, taking payments — are often in the paid upgrade.
Side by side
| Site generated from your menu | Freemium website builder | |
|---|---|---|
| Menu and prices | The live menu, always current | Typed in or embedded; you keep it in step |
| Hours and address | From your restaurant profile | Edited on the page |
| Design freedom | Limited to the themes offered | Wide |
| Bookings and orders | Part of the same system | Add-ons or a separate tool |
| Your own domain | Depends on the provider | Commonly in the paid upgrade |
| Vendor branding | Depends on the provider | Commonly removed only in the paid upgrade |
An example of the freemium pattern
A common shape: signing up costs nothing and a working site can be built without paying, while connecting your own domain, removing the builder's ads and accepting payments come with a paid upgrade. Builders differ in the details; check the upgrade page of any builder you consider before you build on it.
Which suits which restaurant
- A small restaurant with a changing menu and no web designer: a site generated from the menu, because nothing goes out of date.
- A restaurant whose brand depends on a distinctive site: a builder, accepting the time to keep the menu in step.
- Both: a builder for the brand site, linking to the live menu and booking page — guests get the design and the current menu.
What either kind must include: what a restaurant website should include.
The Thmenu site
Thmenu is our product, and its restaurant website is the menu-generated kind, with no monthly fee and no ads. Every restaurant gets a site on menu.thmenu.com built from the same data as the menu: the live menu, and an About page with hours, address, photos and contact details — a section with no data is left out. Switch on reservations or ordering and the site gets them too. It is available in 31 languages and carries schema.org Restaurant data. Serving the site from your own domain is not available yet, and pages show "Powered by Thmenu", which cannot be hidden. If you already have a site, you can link to your Thmenu menu from it.