You're looking for a place to eat and don't want to drive all over town. You hit up the interGoogleNet and come across a restaurant website. What do you need and want to see on the website?

Obvious things come to mind for me are ... business hours, specials and a menu.

For a menu, you'd want it separated out into things like Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Entree's, Sides, etc all of that. Then for each item have it broken down with everything that's on it.

The appeal is the information you the potential consumer can acquire about the restaurant, not the flashiness of the website.

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If the restaurant is around here I don't look at the websites. Most don't have one and I know what they offer.

If I am going elsewhere I do a google search to see what places are near where I want to eat.

Sadly the better the website the more inclined I am to think they know what they are doing. I read as many reviews as I can knowing that people who are ticked off are more likely to post a review than someone who is satisfied.

I also check the menu. I won't go to a place that doesn't have some kind of a menu online.

Separated into the various meals is high on my list. A breakfast menu is not needed most of the time as I am there most often for dinner. A meat, fish, pasta breakdown is often useful. I like looking a their special of the day menu. It gives me an idea of the caliber of the chef.

Prices are helpful. My daughter wanted us to meet int he western suburbs for Mother's Day. Most of them had a buffet. When I saw the prices were at $50 or more I told my daughter that we would have to go somewhere else. I don't mind paying for the special occasion but my wife would not enjoy her meal and since she just had surgery she certainly wouldn't have eaten very much.

Reading what is in the various dishes is helpful. We usually have 2-4 dishes that she say we woulds like to try. 3-4 dishes we know we would not like because of what they have in the dish. Naturally when we get there we change our mind completely.

A few photos of the place is helpful. Of course that is when the restaurant is at it's best and not on a hectic Friday night.

Knowing how long the place has been open and how long the current owner has been there helps us decide.

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Generally, the only times I check online menus I'm looking for a high-end place, either because I'm going to a conference and always splurge on one meal when doing so, or because I'm looking for cooking ingredient inspiration.

As for the former, most of the time I look at the appetizers and whether they have a cheese plate alternative for dessert. IMO two of the biggest reasons to go to higher end places are (i) their "appetizers" are something beyond "deep fried whatever" that just fills you up before you get to the main course; and (ii) they often offer a cheese plate as an alternative to 1000-calorie desserts.

Occasionally, when I'm in a strange town, I'll go online when I want a specific type of food (seafood, Chinese, Italian, whatever). But mostly then I either rely on friends in the town or hotel concierge types or cab drivers or bartenders. Actually, come to think of it, I do that for the high-end places, too -- I just use the internet for prelim research and then ask the concierge/whoever about thus-and-such place.

If you don't have personal experience/knowledge, word of mouth still beats anything else, IMO.

Now if you are into experimenting in your own kitchen, browsing online menus can be highly productive. But that's another story.

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Do you have an opportunity to create a website for a local restaurant?

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I have a scaleable business plan idea that will benefit small market businesses and gain myself some exposure and experience. Right now, baby steps.

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You mean like GrubHub ?

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When I looking to see what others had done, that's one of the sites I found. The concept is similar, yes, but there's quite a bit of room for improvement and efficiency.

They don't even have Applebee's listed for Green Bay!!!

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lol about Applebee's - thanks to Ryan Longwell for that one.


The only reason I'm asking is because I thought I had a brilliant idea to bring small businesses the ability to accept online orders, but then I found GrubHub and didn't think it was worth it to compete.

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Zuck wasn't the first to come up with social networking, but it hasn't done him too bad thus far. 🙂 Keep your dreams alive!

The idea here is mainly to offer an online presence with minimal costs for small businesses. The revenue from the project would fund PH and catapult us to a better server, with no additional cost from my wallet.

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i was going to say there are many examples of companies not being the first into the market but eventually earning a lion's share because they had a better quality product OR better marketing. (I think I heard Betamax tapes were better than VHS tapes but lost out because JVC was better at marketing their product than Sony was.)

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