What Is It About Restaurant Websites? • Hacker News Board

Re: What Is It About Restaurant Websites?

#31

Post by chunkyslink » Mon, Mar 08, 2010, 8:58 AM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #3

As with most things, form trumps substance when you're selling websites to a local business. They want to have a sexier website than their competitors. Their competitors all have sites with big Flash intros and cool animations and stuff. This is what your layperson cares about when viewing your portfolio; they don't care about functionality across platforms, they don't care about accessibility or immediacy of pertine…

I know what you are saying and this might be the attitude of people who own one restaurant. But when you start dealing with chains and bigger businesses they are much more interested in using the site to engage their customers. It needs to be a delivery method for offers and competitions and like the other commenters point out, SEO is a massive consideration.

Bums on seats is the bottom line.

Re: What Is It About Restaurant Websites?

#32

Post by dflock » Mon, Mar 08, 2010, 12:22 PM UTC

sabat wrote: post #25

dminor wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French Laundry could probably put up an "under construction" graphic without affecting their business in the least.

But a restaurant of its caliber should have a good website, regardless.

Being a web developer, I agree, obviously, but I'm not sure if it's true. If they're packed to capacity 100% of the time with a crap website, paying for a better one if just an unnecessary expense, isn't it? Especially if they're a small business with no desire to expand into a chain?

Re: What Is It About Restaurant Websites?

#33

Post by stcredzero » Mon, Mar 08, 2010, 12:37 PM UTC

dfreidin wrote: post #16

Joboo wrote: post #8

I'll never understand the complaint in scenario #2. Use the device in your hand for what it was originally intended, and CALL them.

What if I don't know the number? I could maybe find it on the website, assuming I could get there.

Google. Weak restaurant websites can use them as a crutch.

Re: What Is It About Restaurant Websites?

#34

Post by stcredzero » Mon, Mar 08, 2010, 12:44 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #29

Here's a restaurant web site that I recently used when deciding where to eat with friends. While it wouldn't win any design awards, it had exactly what I needed - a menu, an image of the location, and an address. http://www.gaborbrothers.com/ A lot of local businesses don't get my business because they don't have or want a web site, and I don't use the yellow pages. A decent web site is becoming increasingly importan…

No design awards, but this website does exactly what I want as a restaurant customer.

http://www.pronto-2-go.com/

Re: What Is It About Restaurant Websites?

#35

Post by stcredzero » Mon, Mar 08, 2010, 12:48 PM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #3

As with most things, form trumps substance when you're selling websites to a local business. They want to have a sexier website than their competitors. Their competitors all have sites with big Flash intros and cool animations and stuff. This is what your layperson cares about when viewing your portfolio; they don't care about functionality across platforms, they don't care about accessibility or immediacy of pertine…

As with most things, form trumps substance when you're selling Y to X.

Such things tend to devalue the Internet. I think this is part of the problem Yelp is trying to solve.

Re: What Is It About Restaurant Websites?

#36

Post by access_denied » Mon, Mar 08, 2010, 1:41 PM UTC

hartror wrote: post #21

cookiecaper wrote: post #3

As with most things, form trumps substance when you're selling websites to a local business. They want to have a sexier website than their competitors. Their competitors all have sites with big Flash intros and cool animations and stuff. This is what your layperson cares about when viewing your portfolio; they don't care about functionality across platforms, they don't care about accessibility or immediacy of pertine…

I agree wholeheartedly. It is a lack of understanding on the part of the business owners for about what a website is FOR and a lack of interest in educating them on the part of the developers on these websites. I'm sure this isn't an original idea but web development firms should offer a subscription package to owners. This subscription would assist them in monitoring the performance of their total web presence (not…

The other side of this coin is, that 99.9% of sales guys don't listen like 5 minutes to the tech guy to understand even the tiniest technical detail. And I am saying this as a marketing guy (ok, I like to code.. but..).

Re: What Is It About Restaurant Websites?

#37

Post by waterlesscloud » Mon, Mar 08, 2010, 5:15 PM UTC

dflock wrote: post #32

sabat wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But a restaurant of its caliber should have a good website, regardless.

Being a web developer, I agree, obviously, but I'm not sure if it's true. If they're packed to capacity 100% of the time with a crap website, paying for a better one if just an unnecessary expense, isn't it? Especially if they're a small business with no desire to expand into a chain?

But they are a chain, in a sense. Keller is, anyway.

Re: What Is It About Restaurant Websites?

#38

Post by shade » Mon, Mar 08, 2010, 7:55 PM UTC

jff wrote: post #26

shade wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm deaf. How would you suggest that I do this? Seriously, I do understand the point you're making, but keep in mind that not everyone is interested in the phone portion of their smartphone, or able to make effective use of it. :)

Are there no TTS gateway apps for the Sidekick/iPhone? I know there's websites that let you type phone conversations.

(Missed this comment earlier)

There are. I'm actually a customer of Sprint IP Relay and have a personal number set up with them that's linked to my Google Talk account. However, making a relay call is generally massively frustrating for the parties on both sides of the line, so I tend to avoid it.