Here is the uncomfortable truth about third-party delivery apps: they are not your partners. DoorDash, Uber Eats, and SkipTheDishes charge Canadian restaurants between 15% and 30% commission on every order. On a $50 dinner order, you are handing $10-15 to a platform headquartered outside Canada, run by an algorithm that shows your listing alongside your direct competitors, and will eventually charge customers a premium to prioritise your restaurant in search results.
Your own website charges you nothing per order. It shows your menu without competition. It is yours.
This is not an argument to abandon delivery platforms - they have real marketing value and reach customers who would not otherwise find you. But every restaurant owner who builds their own online ordering capability, takes direct reservations, and owns their customer relationships comes out ahead over time.
Here is what your restaurant website needs to do that.
The Non-Negotiables
There are pages and elements that every restaurant website must have, without exception.
Your menu. Not a PDF. A real, readable, mobile-friendly menu. PDFs are hard to read on phones, do not display well in browsers, and cannot be found by Google. Use actual HTML text with categories and prices. Update it when your menu changes - a website showing prices or items you no longer offer is worse than no website.
Hours and location. Your hours must be current, including holiday hours and seasonal changes. Embed a Google Map on your contact page so people can get directions in one tap. List your address in plain text - not just in the map embed - so it is readable and indexable.
Phone number and reservation link. Your phone number should be click-to-call on mobile. If you take reservations through OpenTable, Resy, or a similar platform, link directly to your reservation page. Do not make customers search for how to book.
Online ordering integration. If you offer takeout or delivery, your own website should have a direct ordering option. Services like Square Online, Ritual, or Restolabs offer embedded ordering at a fraction of the commission rates of the big apps. Even a simple "call to order" option with your phone number prominently displayed increases direct orders.
Your story. Canadians eat at local restaurants partly because they want to support local businesses. A brief, genuine About page - who you are, why you opened this restaurant, what makes your food worth eating - builds a connection that a delivery app listing never can.
Photography: The One Investment That Pays for Itself
If there is one thing worth spending money on for a restaurant website, it is food photography.
Dark, blurry photos taken on a smartphone in a restaurant's existing lighting will actively hurt your business. Professional food photography, done once, can be used on your website, social media, Google Business Profile, and printed menus for years.
You do not need a food photographer on permanent retainer. A single half-day shoot covering your hero dishes will produce images that pay for themselves in the first month through increased click-through rates on Google and higher conversion from website visitors to customers.
If professional photography is not immediately possible, learn the basics: natural light near a window, clean backgrounds, shallow depth of field on a phone camera in portrait mode. Bad photography is the single most common reason restaurant websites underperform.
Platform Choice: WordPress vs Dedicated Restaurant Platforms
WordPress with a restaurant theme (options like Restaurant and Cafe, Astra with a food demo, or Divi) gives you the most flexibility and the lowest ongoing cost. You control everything. The trade-off is more setup time and ongoing maintenance.
Dedicated platforms like Squarespace (which has restaurant-specific templates), Wix, or restaurant-specific builders like BentoBox or Owner.com offer faster setup, built-in ordering features, and less technical overhead. The trade-off is monthly fees and less flexibility.
For most independent Canadian restaurants, a well-configured WordPress site on quality hosting is the best long-term value. The initial investment is higher than a drag-and-drop builder but the ongoing costs are significantly lower, and you are not locked into a platform's pricing changes.
Connecting Your Website and Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile is how new customers find you in Google Maps and local search. Your website is where they make decisions and take action.
These two need to be consistent and connected:
- Your hours must match on both
- Your address and phone number must be identical
- Your website URL in your Google Business Profile must be correct and working
- Post photos to your Google Business Profile regularly - the same food photography you use on your website
Encourage customers to leave Google reviews directly. A restaurant with 200 positive reviews shows up differently in local search than one with 20.
The Margin Argument, One More Time
If your restaurant does $10,000 a month in online orders through DoorDash at 25% commission, you are paying $2,500 a month to a platform. A well-built restaurant website with direct online ordering costs a few hundred dollars a year to host. Even capturing 20% of those orders as direct orders saves you hundreds of dollars monthly.
That is not a marketing argument. That is a math argument. Build the website.
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