Takeaway website design is mostly about two things: a menu people can read on a phone in ten seconds, and a clear way to order that does not cost you a commission. The apps will keep bringing you new customers, and that is worth paying for. Your own site is where repeat customers go once they already know you, which is the half of your trade you should not be renting from anyone else.
What a takeaway website is actually for
Most takeaways we talk to assume a website competes with the apps. It does not, really. The apps are a shopping centre and your site is your own front door. Someone browsing for "curry near me" with no particular place in mind will usually end up in an app. Someone who ate your food last Friday and liked it will search your name.
That second group is the one your site exists for. They already know what they want. They need the menu, the price, the hours, and a way to order that takes under a minute. If your name in Google leads to a Facebook page with last year's menu photographed at an angle, that order goes back into an app and you pay for a customer you already earned.
There is a third job too. New customers who find you in an app often check you out before ordering. A site with real photos, a tidy menu and your address on it makes you look like a proper business rather than a kitchen that might not be there next month.
Should you leave the delivery apps?
For almost everyone, no. Not at the start, and probably not ever completely.
The honest position is this. App commission is high, and on a busy Saturday it hurts. But the apps do something a website cannot: they put you in front of people who have never heard of you, at the exact moment those people are hungry. No amount of good web design replaces that. Anyone who tells you a new site will pull your orders off the apps is selling you something.
What your own site can realistically do is shift a slice of your repeat trade to direct orders over time. A customer who orders from you twice a month is worth chasing. The usual approach is to run both, make direct ordering obviously easy, and nudge people towards it with a card or a sticker in the bag. Slow and steady, and you keep the app reach either way.
Be realistic about the staffing side as well. Direct orders arrive on your phone, your tablet or your email, and someone has to watch them during service. If your kitchen is two people flat out, adding an unmanaged order channel creates problems. Start with whatever you can actually keep an eye on.
The menu is the whole job
Everything else on a takeaway website is secondary. If the menu is awkward, nothing else matters.
Make it text, not a photograph of a leaflet
A scanned PDF or a photo of your printed menu is the single most common mistake. On a phone it means pinching, dragging and squinting. Google also cannot read the dish names properly, so searches for your best seller plus your town do not find you. Real text on a page solves both at once.
Group it the way people order
Starters, mains, sides, drinks, deals. Prices next to each item, not in a separate column that drifts out of line on a small screen. If you do meal deals or family bundles, give them their own block near the top because that is often what people are hunting for.
Expect to change it
Supplier prices move and dishes come and go. You need to be able to edit the menu yourself, in the evening, without emailing anybody. That is the main reason a takeaway should never accept a site it cannot log into. With us the editor is included and content changes are unlimited and free, but whoever you use, ask the question before you pay. Our post on what to check before you pay a web designer covers the rest of that conversation.
Ordering options, from simplest to most involved
There is a ladder here, and most takeaways should start lower down it than they think. Each step up costs more and asks more of you during service.
- Call button. A floating call bar on mobile, tapped once. Still the backbone of a lot of takeaway trade, especially with older customers and larger family orders where people want to ask questions.
- WhatsApp or text link. A tap that opens a message to your shop number with the order typed out. No software, no fees, and you already know how to use it. Messy at peak, fine when it is not.
- Order form. The customer picks from your menu on the site, adds a note, gives a name and number, and it lands in your inbox. You ring back to confirm and take payment on collection or at the door. Cheap and workable, but someone has to watch the inbox.
- Online checkout with payment. Items priced as products, card payment taken, order confirmed automatically. This is closer to a small online shop than a standard website, and it changes the cost. We explain how that pricing works in our piece on pay monthly online shops.
- Dedicated takeaway ordering software. Timed collection slots, delivery zones with postcode checks, kitchen printer, driver tracking. Specialist systems exist for this and they charge a monthly fee or a small per order fee. If you are doing serious direct volume, that is the right tool and it is not us.
Most independents do perfectly well on the first three for a year, then decide whether the volume justifies step four or five. Starting at the top because it sounds impressive usually ends with an ordering system nobody in the kitchen uses.
Allergens and the questions you get asked every week
UK food businesses have to be able to give customers information on the fourteen named allergens. For takeaway food that is usually handled by staff when the order is taken, but publishing it on your site saves time and saves awkward phone calls mid service.
Keep it practical. A page listing the allergens in each dish, or at minimum the common ones (gluten, nuts, dairy, shellfish, sesame), plus a plain line telling people to say so when ordering so the kitchen knows. Add vegetarian, vegan and halal markers if they apply to you, because those customers filter hard and will pick the place that says so clearly.
Whatever you publish has to be right and has to stay right. If you change a sauce, change the page. This is your responsibility, not your web designer's, so keep it somewhere you can edit quickly.
Delivery area, hours and the small practical details
These are the things people check just before they order, and they are usually missing or buried.
- Delivery area. A map or a plain list of the postcodes and villages you cover, with any minimum spend or delivery charge next to it. A service area map comes included on every one of our tiers.
- Opening hours, including the days you are closed. Put the closed day in bold. Nothing annoys a customer like driving over on a Monday.
- Collection details. Where to park, whether there is a wait, whether you do a collection discount.
- Peak time honesty. If Friday orders take an hour, say so. People accept a wait they were told about.
- Your phone number in the header on every page. Not just on a contact page.
Speed matters more here than in most trades, because a hungry person on 4G outside a pub has no patience. Big uncompressed photos of every dish are the usual culprit. We went into why in why a slow website costs you work.
Getting found for your own name and your own town
Takeaway searches are local and specific. "Chinese takeaway" plus the town, "pizza delivery" plus a postcode, or just your shop name. Your Google Business Profile does a lot of that heavy lifting, and your website supports it by matching the address, the phone number and the hours exactly.
Dish names in readable text on the menu page help too. Someone searching for a specific regional dish in your area will not find a PDF. Our guide to getting found on Google when you only work locally goes through the groundwork properly.
On words and photos: you can write your own, or use the AI copywriting and AI images that are included free on every tier, or mix the two. For a takeaway we would always push you towards real photos of real plates if you can manage them, because food is the one thing customers genuinely judge on sight. If you would rather write it yourself, writing the words for your own website will help.
What a takeaway website costs
Most takeaways need five to ten pages: home, menu (sometimes split into two or three), allergens, delivery area, about, contact. That lands on Starter at £49 a month for up to 5 pages, or Essential at £79 a month for up to 10 pages. Both exclude VAT, both include hosting, SSL, business email, the editor, a gallery, FAQs, reviews, the floating call bar, the service area map and a free redesign each year. A .co.uk domain is free with a package.
If you want to take card payment online for a set list of items, that is shop territory: Shop Starter covers up to 25 products at £99 a month plus VAT, with 10 pages. Online bookings, useful if you take pre-orders or collection slots, are £20 a month on the smaller tiers and included on Business. Extra pages are £10 a month each, or five for £40.
You pay the first three months up front to start, there is no setup fee, and there is no contract: cancel any month with a month's notice. You can also buy the site outright at the start or later on, as a separate one off payment. You can price up your website yourself without speaking to anyone, or read how pay monthly websites work before you decide.
Frequently asked questions
Can I put my whole menu on the site if prices change often?
Yes, and you should. Content changes are unlimited and free with us, and the Nova editor lets you change a price yourself in a couple of minutes, including on a Sunday evening. The thing to avoid is a site you cannot log into, because menu edits then depend on somebody else's working hours.
Do I need a shop package to take orders online?
Only if you want card payment taken on the site. An order form that emails you the order, with payment on collection or delivery, works on a standard package. If you want items priced as products and paid for at checkout, that is Shop Starter at £99 a month plus VAT for up to 25 products with 10 pages.
Will a website stop people ordering through the apps?
No, and we would not claim it does. The apps reach people who have never heard of you. A site gives your existing customers somewhere to go when they search your name, and makes ordering direct easy if they choose to. Think of it as keeping more of the trade you have already earned.
How many pages does a takeaway really need?
Usually five to ten. Home, menu, allergens, delivery area, about and contact covers it, and a large menu sometimes splits across two or three pages. Starter covers up to 5 pages at £49 a month plus VAT, Essential up to 10 at £79. Extra pages are £10 a month each if you outgrow a tier.
What about photos of the food?
Real photos beat anything generated, so use your own where you can. A phone near a window, plain background, one dish at a time. If you have nothing usable yet, AI images are included free on every tier and give you something presentable while you build up a proper set over a few months.
Where your own site fits
Keep the apps for reach. Build your own site for the customers who already know your name, and make the menu, the allergens and the ordering route so easy that going direct is the path of least resistance. Expect that shift to take months, not weeks.
RentAWeb builds and runs small business websites for a monthly fee, with the hosting, the editor, unlimited content changes and a yearly redesign included, no contract and no setup fee. Everything is done remotely by phone, email and video, so you can sort the whole thing between lunch and evening service.
