What a coffee shop website needs

Someone opening a coffee shop's website usually wants three things: what you have, what it costs and whether you're open right now. The list below follows that order, with what's specific to a café compared with a restaurant.

The checklist

The menu: the coffee, the options and what goes with it

A café menu has more options than a restaurant's, and the final price depends on them. On the site, every drink has a price for each size, and every option has its own price:

• Espresso drinks, in the sizes you serve.
• Plant milks (oat, almond, soy, coconut) and what they cost extra.
• Extras: an extra shot, decaf, syrups.
• Batch brew, pour-over and cold brew, if you have them, with the origin of the beans and the roaster.
• Everything that isn't coffee: tea, matcha, hot chocolate, lemonade.
• Food: pastries, baked goods, sandwiches, with their allergens.

Put the menu up as text, not as a photo or a PDF. It reads on a phone without zooming, changes quickly and Google can read it; Google can even pull the menu from your site into your café's profile on Google Maps. Why a PDF is the weakest option is explained in the article on QR code menus.

Allergens and calories

In the US, the 2022 FDA Food Code asks food establishments to notify customers in writing about the nine major allergens (milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, wheat, peanuts, soybeans and sesame) in unpackaged food. The Food Code is a model and applies where your state or local health department has adopted that edition. A website menu is the easiest written notice to keep current. Calorie labelling is required only for chains with 20 or more locations under the same name, and the FDA's guidance extends it to online menus where customers can order.

In the EU, Regulation 1169/2011 lists 14 allergens, and for orders through a website the European Commission's guidance says allergen information must be available before the order is completed.

Even without online ordering, listing allergens on the menu helps: a customer with an allergy chooses more safely, and your staff answer the same question less often. The full rules are in the guide to what a restaurant website needs.

Hours, address and getting there

Hours go up for every day of the week, with exact times, and get updated for holidays. A café that opens at 7:30 has customers checking the time at 7:15, on their way.

The address comes with a map and a button that opens directions in Google Maps or Apple Maps, plus a few words on how to get there: the nearest stop, parking, the entrance if it isn't obvious from the street. The same details should appear identically on your Google Business Profile; the Google Business Profile guide covers what else to fill in there.

Answers to everyday questions

A share of a café's calls and messages are the same questions. Short answers on the home page take care of them:

• Laptops and wifi: whether people can work there, whether tables have outlets.
• Patio: whether you have one and which months it's open.
• Pets and children: whether they're welcome.
• Groups: whether a larger table or the space can be booked for an event.
• Access: whether there's step-free entry.

Write them as plain sentences in your own voice: "We have a patio from April to October", "Dogs are welcome".

Beans, subscriptions and gift cards

Many specialty cafés sell beans, brewing gear or gift cards. On the site, these can be shown simply, with prices and a note that they're sold in the café, or sold online, with a cart and checkout.

If people pay on the site, it becomes an online store, and the usual online selling rules apply: clear prices and shipping costs, returns information, terms and conditions, and sales tax where it applies. Orders for offices or events (coffee for a meeting, a coffee bar at an event) deserve their own page with a short form.

Photos and the story of the place

Real photos help customers choose: the bar, the drinks, the interior, the patio and the team. Compress them before uploading, so the site opens quickly on mobile data; a photo of several megabytes makes the page slow.

The About page is short: who you are, what coffee you make and where the beans come from. Customers care more about what they'll find today than about the story of the opening.

The legal basics

• Accessibility. The US Department of Justice's 2022 guidance says the ADA applies to the goods and services businesses open to the public offer on the web. It points to WCAG as a practical standard: text alternatives for images, enough contrast, a site that works with a keyboard.
• Privacy policy, if the site has a contact, booking or order form. In California, CalOPPA requires one on any site that collects personal information from California residents; in the EU, GDPR does.
• Cookie consent for visitors in the EU, if the site uses cookies that aren't strictly necessary.

What helps the site show up on Google and in AI assistants

• A clear title for every page: the café's name, what you do and the neighbourhood, such as "Joe's Coffee, specialty coffee in East Austin".
• Structured data for a café (the CafeOrCoffeeShop type from schema.org), with the address, hours, phone and a link to the menu.
• A Google profile linked to the site: the website and menu fields point to your own pages.
• The same details everywhere: name, address, phone and hours identical on the site, on maps and on social media.

What else matters for ChatGPT and Google's AI answers is in the guide to showing up in AI answers.

The most common mistakes

1. The menu only on Instagram, as a photo or a PDF.
2. Prices without sizes or without the cost of plant milk.
3. Outdated hours, especially around holidays.
4. No answer to "can I work on my laptop?".
5. Uncompressed photos, several megabytes each.
6. An Instagram link instead of a website on the Google Maps profile.

All of these are fixed when the site is built. The page on coffee shop websites shows what we include when we build one.