TableSpark's audit of 1,000 independent UK restaurant websites in under two minutes: dead listings, missing restaurant data, menus as PDFs, booking and calling that leave the page, and what a site needs to be found and booked.
What the film covers
- The site that looked finished
- What "done" should mean
- What designers charge
- Why a cheap quote can cost more
- The brief
- The contract
- The acceptance test
- Two routes
Questions the film answers
- How much does a restaurant website cost from a UK designer?
On the pages read for this guide, published build prices started at about £400 and ran past £2,000, with monthly care from £24.99 excl. VAT to £99. Many agency pages publish no figure. Hungry Pixels' guide estimates freelancers at roughly £400 to £1,500 and agencies at often £2,000 to £5,000 or more, as its own ranges. Compare three-year totals, including booking, changes and search set-up.
- Is a builder cheaper than hiring a designer?
A builder can have the lowest line item, and it moves the work to the owner's time. Page-publishing tools do not by themselves guarantee a Restaurant data block, a text menu or a sitemap. The audit found restaurant data varied strongly by platform. A restaurant platform that includes those pieces on every plan removes most of the assembly, and the owner can run the checker to confirm.
- Who owns the website if the designer and I part ways?
That depends on the contract. The IPO says the creator is the first owner of copyright unless it is agreed in writing, and an assignment must be signed to be effective. Ask for a written assignment or a clear perpetual licence, the domain in the owner's name, admin logins and a handover pack. Without them the owner may hold only a licence to use the site.
- What monthly fees should be expected after launch?
Expect hosting and care plans, allowances of changes, and extra hours billed separately. Published figures include £24.99 excl. VAT, £29, £49 and £59 a month, with change allowances from 30 minutes to two hours on the pages read. Ask what a normal month of menu, hours and price edits costs, and what the next hour costs. A platform plan puts the editing in the owner's hands.
- Will a new website get a restaurant onto Google?
Not by itself. Google does not guarantee crawling, indexing or serving, and indexing and ranking remain decisions for Google. A live link can still sit behind a noindex rule, a conflicting canonical or a missing sitemap. The sensible request is that every technical reason for not being found is checked and recorded, then verified in Search Console under the owner's login.
- Do I need a cookie banner and privacy policy, and whose job is it?
The restaurant carries the responsibility. The ICO says that in most cases the service provider has primary responsibility for compliance with PECR, and regulation 6 restricts storing or accessing information on a visitor's device. Ask the designer in writing for the cookies, trackers and embeds the build sets, and for privacy and cookie pages that match them.