Restaurant and hospitality website design in Palm Beach CountyFill the Room From the First Search
Epic Wolf designs and builds websites for restaurants, hotels and private clubs in Palm Beach County from West Palm Beach. A hospitality site has four jobs: show the menu as real text, take the reservation or booking directly, sell private events and tell search engines the hours and location. Florida and federal rules on service charge notices and lodging prices also reach the website.
Restaurant and hospitality websites
Someone standing on Clematis Street or Atlantic Avenue deciding where to eat gives a restaurant's website about ten seconds. They want the menu, the hours, a way to book and a sense of the room. Too many sites answer with a slow video, a menu saved as a photograph and a reservation link buried under a newsletter popup.
Hotels and clubs face the same test with higher stakes. A guest comparing a boutique hotel's own site with a booking platform will book wherever the price is clearer and the rooms look better. A prospective member judges a club by its restraint. In each case the website either earns the direct relationship or gives it to a middleman.
The rules here are practical. Florida licenses and inspects restaurants and lodging through DBPR. A state statute says where a service charge notice has to appear, including the website when orders are placed there. A federal rule requires the total price up front for short-term lodging. We build those in, and your counsel or general manager confirms the wording.
What it includes
Text menus
Menus built as real page text your staff can update in minutes, readable by phones, screen readers and search engines.
Direct reservations
Your reservation or booking system placed one tap from every page, with the phone number beside it.
Private events pages
Rooms, capacities, sample menus and an inquiry form that reaches the events manager with the date attached.
Pricing notices
Service charge and fee disclosures placed where the statute and the federal rule require, in wording your counsel approves.
Photography and film
The room, the plates and the people, planned and directed by us and produced through vetted partners.
Location data
Structured data for hours, address, cuisine and menu so maps and AI assistants send people to the right door.
Gift cards and ordering
Online gift cards, merchandise or ordering when the business wants them, connected to the systems already in use.
Multi-venue structure
One site or a family of sites for a group, with each venue's identity intact and shared content managed once.
Send us your site and your current menu.
We will show you how the menu reads on a phone today and what a guest has to do to book a table or a room.
What to know
The rules behind restaurant and hospitality websites
- Service charges on the site
Florida Statutes 509.214 says a public food service establishment that charges an operations charge, which includes service charges and automatic gratuities, must give notice of the amount or percentage and its purpose on the food menu and on the website or mobile application where orders are placed, in type at least as large as the menu item descriptions.
Source: Florida Statutes 509.214
- Hotel prices include the fees
The FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees covers short-term lodging, including hotels, inns and vacation rentals. A business that shows a price must show the total, including fees guests are required to pay, and the FTC says the rule applies whether the offer appears online, in an app or in person.
- Licensed and inspected
DBPR's Division of Hotels and Restaurants licenses, inspects and regulates public lodging and food service establishments in Florida. Its food service guide says all new licensees must pass a sanitation and safety inspection before opening, so a launch date for the website follows the license, not the lease.
- Menus a machine can read
Google's local business documentation includes properties for a food establishment's menu address, the cuisine it serves and its opening hours. That structured data helps Google show accurate details in Search and Maps. A menu posted only as an image gives it nothing to read.
Source: Google Search Central: Local business structured data
- Menus a person can read
The Justice Department's ADA web guidance names images without text alternatives, poor color contrast and inaccessible online forms among the barriers that keep people with disabilities from using a business's website. A photographed menu and an unlabeled reservation form are both on that list.
How the work runs
Decide the one action
A dinner reservation, a room night, a membership inquiry or a private event. We choose the action that matters most for each venue and put it within reach of every screen.
Shoot and write the room
We plan photography around service so the images look like a real night, write short copy in the venue's own voice and convert every menu to text. Fee and service charge wording goes to your counsel.
Launch before the season
We build the site fast and light for phones on cellular data, connect booking and events inquiries and train the staff who will change menus and hours. Then we watch what guests search for and adjust.
Questions
Restaurant and hospitality websites questions answered
Yes, when orders are placed there. Florida Statutes 509.214 requires a restaurant that adds an operations charge, such as a service charge or automatic gratuity, to state the amount or percentage and its purpose on the menu and on the website or app where food and beverage orders are placed. The notice type must be at least as large as the menu descriptions. Your attorney should confirm the wording.
Yes. The FTC's Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees requires anyone advertising a price for short-term lodging to show the total price, including mandatory fees, and it applies online. That covers hotels, inns and vacation rentals. The rule does not ban a fee. It bans hiding it. We design the booking path so the first price a guest sees is the real one.
Because text can be read by everything that matters. A phone displays it without zooming, a screen reader speaks it, Google can match a dish to a search and your staff can change a price without calling a designer. A PDF or a photograph of the menu fails most of those. We build menus as editable page text and can still offer a printable version.
Yes, and most venues should make their own site the first place to book. We place whatever reservation system you use prominently on every page and can add a simple request form for large parties and private events. Whether to keep a third-party platform is a business decision about fees and reach, and many restaurants run both.
A simple page should be live as soon as the name is public, and the full site before opening night. Early on it needs the concept, the location, hiring information and a way to join the list. Florida requires new food service licensees to pass an inspection before opening, so opening dates move. We keep the date off the site until the operator confirms it.
Keep reading
Go deeper before you decide
- Website Accessibility and the ADA for Florida BusinessesWhat the ADA, the Department of Justice and WCAG say about website accessibility, why Florida businesses get sued and a practical checklist to start with.
- How a Palm Beach Business Gets Found in ChatGPT and Google AI AnswersHow a local business shows up in Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT. No secret switch, just a clear and consistent signal across the sources AI trusts.
- Custom Website vs Website BuilderWix, Squarespace, Shopify and WordPress compared with a custom build: what each platform's own documentation says about export, ownership and limits.
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