The short answer: A custom website build runs $3,500 to $12,000 or more, one time. Most single-location restaurants sit in the lower half of that, because a restaurant site is a short site: menus, hours, directions, photos, and an easy way to book a table or ask about a party. What moves a restaurant up the range is almost always taking orders and money on your own site instead of handing that to an app, since online ordering and small stores start at $3,500 as their own line, plus every extra address or concept. The build is a one-time price, not a subscription: ongoing upkeep is optional, and you own the site.
You cannot price a restaurant site off a domain name and a seat count. The number tracks how much has to be designed, written, and wired together, and for a restaurant that comes down to a few decisions.
The published number is $3,500 to $12,000 or more, one time, and we quote inside it. Why a custom site costs what it costs in general, and how to read a quote you are already holding, sits in the website cost guide. Here is how that lands on a restaurant.
Near the bottom. One room, one address. Menus as real pages instead of a download, hours kept in one place so they match your Google Business Profile, your own photos, tap to call, directions, a clean handoff to whoever takes your reservations, and a private events form that reaches a person instead of an inbox nobody opens. For a single dining room, that is a finished site, not a starter one.
Through the middle. The same thing with depth: a page for each menu and for everything you sell besides dinner, a catering page that answers what you get asked on the phone, an events section you can update yourself, video of the room, and a hiring page that stops eating your week. Several addresses land here too, since each one needs its own page, hours, directions, and photos.
At the top and past it. Anything that takes money on your side: ordering, gift cards, ticketed dinners, merch, catering deposits. Checkout, tax, and refunds become decisions somebody has to make and write down. We built a storefront with over 1,400 products and live Stripe checkout for a Virginia retailer, and a kitchen selling a short menu online runs on the same plumbing. Custom tools are priced on their own: calculators from $600, most workhorse tools $1,500 to $4,000, online ordering and small stores from $3,500, and Tool Care at $75 a month per tool.
Two restaurants with the same seat count get different numbers, and the reasons are boring.
It goes up when:
It stays down when:
Some costs sit outside the build. Upkeep after launch is optional instead of bundled in, and it lives on website maintenance. What SEO costs for a restaurant is a separate monthly decision, and a new site does not commit you to it. Ads are two lines: budget goes to Google itself, and Google Ads management has no published fee, since the industry bills a flat rate or a percentage of spend. We quote it flat after a free consult. Then there are the assistants people ask where to eat tonight. Ads run in and around those AI answers, Google sells that space like any other screen. What the money cannot buy is the pick: no ad spend decides which restaurant the organic answer itself recommends. That pick follows from the build, menus as pages with prices and hours in text an assistant can use, which is AI search optimization.
Before you compare quotes, get two facts in hand.
After that, the full scope is on the restaurant marketing page, the process is on how we build, and if an opening date matters more than the price does, how long it takes to build a website is the honest version.
We are Orlando based and have worked with local service businesses nationwide since 2008. You can see a real design for your restaurant before paying anything: get a free mockup, use the quote form, or call or text (407) 694-2055. The quote comes flat and in writing, the work is month to month, and the site, the content, and the accounts are yours.
Plenty of restaurants run both, and that is a reasonable place to be. The apps put you in front of people who were never going to find you, and they keep a cut of every order for it. Ordering on your own site starts at $3,500 as its own build, and the honest catch is that it does not fill itself. Somebody has to tell guests it exists, on the receipt, on the window, in the box, and somebody has to watch the tablet during a rush. If nobody will own that, wait.
You should not be. Menu changes are the most common edit a restaurant makes, so the build should hand you a way to make them yourself in a couple of minutes, from the office or your phone. If a quote does not mention it, ask directly: who changes a price, and what does that cost. A site where every menu edit is a support ticket gets expensive in a way the original quote never showed.
Sometimes you should not, especially in a first year. Check three things before you decide. Who the domain is registered to, because on bundled plans it is often not you. Whether your photos and menu can be exported if you ever leave. And what happens to the site the month you stop paying for the platform. If those answers are fine and the pages do the job, keep it and spend the money on the room.
Restaurant marketing services · How much does a website cost? · How much does SEO cost for a restaurant? · How much does a website redesign cost? · Online ordering and small stores · Get a free mockup
Free consultation, plain-English answer. If you don't need us, we'll say so.
Book a free consultation → Or call/text directly: (407) 694-2055Tell us a little about the business and we will come back with an honest read: what we would fix first, what it costs, and whether you need us at all. Prefer to see work before you talk numbers? Get a free homepage mockup, built for your business, yours to keep either way.
Brandon reads every one of these himself. You will hear back shortly with an honest read on what we would do first, what it costs, and whether it is worth it for you.