Squarespace For Restaurants

Squarespace offers many features, but for a restaurant, these are the ones that matter.

Templates

Squarespace has outstanding templates for restaurant websites.

Choose a template based on layout and whitespace, not the demo photos. A few examples:

• Fine Dining: Heron or Palmer uses large imagery and elegant type for a premium feel.
• Casual / Bars: Atlantic or Chotto offers bold sections and high contrast, perfect for high-energy spots.
• Cafés: Juniper is light, airy, and friendly.
• Hybrid: Iduma balances informational blocks with a shop section for merch or pantry goods.

A few important notes about templates:

• Templates are responsive — Which means they fit the size of any browser, so they are desktop, mobile, and tablet friendly.
• Templates have a recognizable look and feel — Squarespace templates have a look: bold typography, white space, and plenty of room to showcase photography.
• Photos will elevate your template — Squarespace templates are designed to showcase photography (which is very important for restaurant websites).
• You can’t switch templates — Templates are starting points in Squarespace. You can’t add your content and then switch to another template. If you decide to switch templates, you’ll have to start from scratch.

See All Squarespace Restaurant Templates

You can also just delete the pre-populated pages and start from scratch, or use the Blueprint AI Builder to start with its new AI-based website builder.

Tip: Blueprint AI Builder can help you start fast, but if you care about layout and hierarchy, you’ll usually get a cleaner result by starting with a template (or a blank page) and building intentionally in the editor.

Fluid Engine (The Editor)

Squarespace Overview & Using Its Editing System

Squarespace’s grid-based drag-and-drop editor, Fluid Engine, allows you to intuitively drag and drop blocks anywhere in a section with Squarespace’s Fluid Engine editing system. This structured approach provides sufficient customization while remaining intuitive and easy to use.

Fluid Engine also has an independent mobile view. You can rearrange the mobile layout blocks and sections so that the most essential info isn’t buried at the bottom of a long scroll on a phone screen.

Web-Formatted Menus (Please, No PDFs)

Many restaurant websites use PDF menus, which are cumbersome on mobile: they force users to pinch, zoom, and pan around a tiny document. They require users to download a file just to see if they can afford the steak. They kill conversions. They are also difficult to edit—you basically have to replace the PDF to change even the smallest detail.

Squarespace provides web-native menu formatting, which is superior for three reasons:

• Mobile Readability: It adjusts to any screen size automatically. No pinching required. The text reflows to fit the phone screen, making it effortless to read.
• SEO Value: Google can index your dish names and descriptions. If someone searches “best truffle pasta near me,” Google can read your text menu; it can’t always read a PDF image. This is “free” marketing you miss out on with PDFs.
• Accessibility: It’s readable to screen readers, making your site accessible to everyone. This isn’t just about compliance; it’s about not alienating potential customers.

Reservations (Tock, Resy, and OpenTable)

Squarespace doesn’t force you into a walled garden. You have choices depending on your operations:

• Native Integration: Squarespace previously owned Tock, which it sold to American Express in 2024. However, the integration remains native and seamless. Tock is excellent for table management and is particularly effective at reducing no-shows by allowing pre-payments or deposit-based bookings.
• Embeds: If you use OpenTable or Resy, you can easily embed their widgets using Code Blocks. This keeps the booking experience on your site, rather than redirecting the user to a new tab where you lose control.

Online Ordering & Delivery

If you want customers to order directly through your website, Squarespace integrates with ChowNow and can add an embedded ordering experience to your site.

This is vital if you want to own the customer relationship rather than paying massive fees (20-30%) to third-party delivery apps like Uber Eats or DoorDash. While those apps are good for discovery, your goal should always be to convert loyal customers to order directly through your site, where you keep the profit.

Revenue & Marketing Tools

Squarespace provides a suite of tools to keep customers coming back and ensure new ones can find you.

• Email Campaigns: Use the built-in Email Campaigns tool to announce seasonal menu drops or holiday hours. Because it’s integrated, you can pull your site’s logo, blog posts, and products directly into your emails, ensuring your branding stays consistent without any extra design work.
• Gift Cards: Customers can buy a digital gift card and receive a code by email. They can redeem it at online checkout, and you can also redeem it in person using the Squarespace iOS app.
• Events & Promotions: Use Events Pages to manage and sell tickets for wine tastings, holiday pop-ups, or live music nights. Each event gets its own clean layout with date, time, and a “Get Tickets” button to drive immediate conversions.
• Local Search Visibility (SEO): Don’t hide the basics. A dedicated Locations Page is the cleanest move for search engines. While you must still update your hours directly on your Google Business Profile to keep Google Maps accurate, Squarespace automatically generates basic structured data (such as Organization/LocalBusiness) based on the business information you add in your site settings. This behind-the-scenes code “tells” Google exactly where your info is, helping you land in the “Local Pack” and the Knowledge Panel when people search for food in your area.
• Banners & Promotions: Use the Announcement Bar or Promotional Pop-ups to highlight immediate news, such as a “Sold Out” status for an event or a special limited-time discount for newsletter subscribers.
• Analytics: Track what matters: which pages get the most traffic (Menu vs Visit Us vs Reservations), which CTA gets clicked most (Reserve vs Order), and where visitors come from (search, Instagram, Google Maps).

Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial. After that, there are four plans. If you pay annually, the pricing is:

• Basic: $16/month
• Core (Recommended): $23/month
• Plus: $39/month
• Advanced: $99/month

Tip: You can use code SBR10 to get an extra 10% off.

The simple way to choose (for restaurants)

Most restaurants should choose Core ($23/month)

Core is the sweet spot because it removes the most significant “small business tax” on Squarespace: the online store transaction fee is 0% (Basic charges 2%). It also includes advanced website analytics and unlimited contributors, which matters if you want multiple people to update the site.

Choose Core if you:

• sell gift cards or merch
• want solid analytics
• have more than 1–2 people working on the site

Choose Basic ($16/month) if you are not really selling online

Basic is fine for a clean “brochure” restaurant website (Menu, Visit Us, Reservations link). But it has two limitations to know about:

• 2% online store transaction fee
• Up to 2 contributors (good for solo owner + one helper, not great for teams)

Basic is a good fit if you:

• mostly need pages and a menu
• are not selling much online

Choose Plus ($39/month) if you sell a meaningful amount online

Plus is for growing commerce. It keeps the 0% online store transaction fee, and lowers payment processing rates compared to Basic/Core (rates start lower). It also adds more commerce-focused tools like shipping/tax services and advanced sales functionality.

Choose Plus if you:

• sell lots of gift cards or merch
• care about lower processing rates as volume grows

Choose Advanced ($99/month) only if you’re a heavy online seller

Advanced is primarily for high-volume commerce businesses that benefit from the lowest payment processing rates and the most advanced selling tools.** Most restaurants won’t need it unless ecommerce is a serious part of the business.**

Check Out Squarespace Plans

The Golden Rule: Utility First (but branding matters too)

People don’t visit a restaurant website to browse. They show up with a mission (usually on a phone):

• View the menu (and prices)
• Reserve a table
• Order pickup or delivery
• Find hours, address, parking
• Call (tap-to-call)

Your job is to make those actions obvious.

But here’s the nuance: branding matters too. Your website should communicate vibe instantly: steakhouse = dark and premium, BBQ = gritty and hearty, ice cream = bright and playful, cocktail bar = minimalist and curated.

A restaurant website has to do two jobs at once:

1. Communicate the vibe (so people want to go)
2. Help visitors complete a task (so they actually do go)

The mistake we see constantly is when branding blocks the task. Your branding should support utility — not replace it.

Step-By-Step Setup

Step 1: Get Inspired. Before building, browse successful restaurant sites to see what works. Note how they display menus, where they place “Book Now” buttons, and the quality of their food photography. Squarespace’s restaurant templates (such as Palmer or Chotto) are also a great starting point for seeing professional layouts in action.

Step 2: Choose Your Starting Point. Pick a template that aligns with your restaurant’s vibe (e.g., Atlantic for fine dining or Juniper for a café). Alternatively, use Blueprint AI Builder—Squarespace’s guided builder—to generate a custom foundation by answering a few questions about your brand’s style and goals.

Step 3: Set Up the Page Structure. Create your core pages: Home, Menu, Locations, Reservations, Gallery, About Us/Our Story. Keep your navigation menu clean and lean.

Step 4: Build Your Digital Menu. Skip the PDF. Use the native Menu Block to type out your offerings. This ensures your menu is perfectly readable on mobile and searchable on Google. Organize it logically into sections like Starters, Mains, and Drinks, and add short, evocative descriptions for your signature dishes.

Step 5: Place Your Buttons (CTAs). Make it effortless for people to pay you. Place a high-contrast “Reserve a Table” or “Order Online” button in your site header and again at the top of your homepage. Ensure your phone number and address are in the footer so they are visible on every page.

Step 6: Finish Strong. Customize your fonts and colors to match your physical space’s atmosphere. Check the mobile view to ensure your buttons are easy to tap with one thumb. Finally, connect your custom domain, update your hours in the Google Business Profile to match your site, and hit publish.

Squarespace is excellent for marketing and will fulfill 95% restaurant websites’ needs, but it isn’t a full operations platform.

• Deep Operations: If you need a website that is a “one-stop shop” for POS, employee scheduling, and complex inventory management, dedicated restaurant systems such as BentoBox or Toast are better suited for your operations. However, be warned: they are often significantly more expensive and offer less creative design freedom.
• Total Code Control: If you want a highly experimental, code-heavy design that breaks standard web conventions (think horizontal scrolling or complex WebGL interactions), Webflow offers more granular control, though with a much steeper learning curve.