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How to Create an Online Restaurant Menu in WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to create an online restaurant menu in WordPress?

Sharing your menu on your website will help convince more people to stop by your restaurant or place their order online.

In this article, we will show you step-by-step instructions on how to create an online restaurant menu easily in WordPress.

How to create an online restaurant menu in WordPress (step by step)

What Do You Need to Start a Restaurant Website?

Before you can create an online restaurant menu, you’ll need to set up a website. If you don’t have a website yet, then don’t worry.

You can easily start a website using WordPress, which is the best website builder in the world used by millions of small businesses, restaurants, bars, and cafes. Over 43% of all websites on the internet use WordPress.

Best of all, you can start building your website without a large upfront investment.

The first thing you need is a domain name and web hosting. We’ve worked out a deal with Bluehost, one of WordPress’s recommended hosting providers, to offer our readers a great deal.

You get a free domain name, a free SSL certificate, and a huge discount on web hosting.

Alternative: We also recommend Hostinger. Their plans also include a free domain name and SSL with a generous discount.

Beyond hosting and a domain name, you’ll also need a WordPress theme. A theme is like a template for your website.

There are tons of great WordPress restaurant themes to help you create a professional website that will encourage your customers to place an order.

If you need help setting up your restaurant website, then see our step-by-step guide on how to make a website.

Why Create an Online Menu in WordPress?

Creating an online restaurant menu page on your WordPress site lets you create a better experience for your visitors and potential customers.

When a visitor comes to your restaurant website, the first thing they usually look at is your menu.

If you are only offering visitors a PDF menu, then you are making it difficult for them to see the food choices you offer.

A hard to read PDF menu

By creating an online menu on your website, there’s no need for your users to download your menu. Downloading PDFs can be difficult, depending on your customers’ data plans and connection.

Plus, a menu page on your website will be mobile responsive and look good on every device, so your visitors can easily read it without zooming in and out.

Best of all, with a menu page, you can easily edit your menu and even add online ordering. PDFs are much more of a hassle to edit and upload when you need to make any menu or pricing changes.

That being said, we will share two different WordPress plugins that can help you add an online restaurant menu to WordPress. Just use the quick links below to choose the plugin you want to use:

Method 1: Add a Restaurant Menu to WordPress With SeedProd

We recommend using SeedProd to create an online restaurant menu in WordPress. It’s the best drag-and-drop WordPress page builder, used by over 1 million websites.

It lets you create a stunning restaurant menu using a drag-and-drop builder. Plus, you can easily edit your menu as it changes, and new menu options are available.

For this tutorial, you can use the free version of SeedProd to create your menu. However, a pro version of SeedProd is available that has 320+ templates, color schemes, email marketing integrations, image carousels, social media blocks, and much more.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the SeedProd plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, navigate to the SeedProd » Pages and click the ‘Add New Landing Page’ button.

Add new SeedProd landing page

This brings you to the template screen, where you can select a page template. There are dozens of templates for different niches and purposes.

To choose a template, hover over it and click the ‘Checkmark’ icon. You can choose whichever template you like, but for this tutorial, we will be using the ‘Dinner Sales Page’ template.

Select landing page template

This brings up a popup where you can name your new menu page. You can also edit the URL of the page. We are simply calling our page ‘Menu’.

Then, click the ‘Save and Start Editing the Page’ button.

Name landing page

Once you’ve done that, you’ll be taken to the page editor screen.

The right-hand side of the page is the preview and can be fully customized. The left-hand side of the page has different blocks and sections you can add to the page.

SeedProd landing page template example

First, click on the page logo.

This will bring up a menu on the left where you can upload your restaurant logo. To add a new logo, you can follow the same process as adding an image to WordPress.

Change menu logo

Next, you can change the navigation menu button to go back to your homepage. That way, when your visitors are done viewing the menu, they can return to your website.

Simply click on the navigation menu button, and then you can change the text and link in the left-hand menu.

Change menu navigation button

After that, you can delete the main content section.

Simply hover over the page headline and click the ‘Delete Block’ icon.

Delete existing sections

Then, you can do the same for the image, text, and button elements.

Next, you can add a headline for the title of your menu by dragging the ‘Headline’ block over to your page.

Add menu headline

Like the other elements, you can change the text size, color, and font with the menu on the left.

After that, you can edit the existing food items and replace them with your own text and images.

First, click on the image and upload your own image with the menu on the left.

Add menu item image

Next, click on the current headline to enter your own text.

You can also change the text by clicking on it and adding a description.

Change menu item text

Once you’ve changed the headline and text, you can add a price for the item.

Simply drag the ‘Text’ element to your page and then customize the text with the left-hand menu.

Add menu item price

Then, simply follow the same steps as above for the rest of the items on your restaurant menu.

You can customize all of the sections of the page template.

If you want to add another menu section with the same style, then hover over the element and click ‘Duplicate Row’.

Duplicate section

This will make a copy of the same row and add it directly beneath.

Feel free to continue making customizations to your restaurant menu. You can fully customize every part of the page, including colors, sizing, fonts, and more.

If you don’t want to add a photo for every item, then you can easily use a list block to add menu items.

Once you’re done creating your online restaurant menu, click the dropdown arrow next to the ‘Save’ button and select ‘Publish’.

Publish menu live

Your new restaurant menu is now live for your visitors to see.

Now, you can add your restaurant menu to your navigation menu and other areas of your WordPress blog.

WordPress restaurant menu

Method 2: Add a Restaurant Menu to WordPress With Food Menu

This method uses the Food Menu – Restaurant Menu & Online Ordering plugin. This plugin lets you quickly create an online menu in WordPress.

It also integrates with WooCommerce, so you can give your visitors the option to place an online order.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Food Menu – Restaurant Menu & Online Ordering plugin. For more details, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, navigate to the Food Menu » Add Food.

Add new menu item

On this screen, you can enter your menu item name, description, and image.

After that, click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button to save your menu item.

Publish new menu item

To add more items to your menu, simply follow the same steps as above.

Once you’re finished adding items to your food menu, it’s time to add this menu to WordPress.

First, you need to go to the Food Menu » ShortCode Generator, and then click the ‘Add New’ button.

Go to shortcode generator

Next, you can give your shortcode a title to help you remember the type of menu items you added.

Then, you can customize how you want your menu to display.

Name your menu shortcode

We will keep the default options, but you can customize how the menu displays with the settings in the ‘Layout’ section.

Here, you can select the number of items to display per row.

Change shortcode layout

In the ‘Filtering’ tab, you can choose whether you want to display a simple menu or if you want to enable online ordering.

To turn on online ordering, simply select the ‘WooCommerce’ radio button. You can also control which items you want to display.

Shortcode filtering

If you are planning on letting customers add food items to their carts and checkout, then you need to add your menu items as products in your WooCommerce store.

For more details on adding products, see our step-by-step guide on how to start an online store.

Next, you can customize the information that displays for each item by clicking on the ‘Field selection’ tab.

Field selection shortcode

As you check or uncheck the boxes, you can see a real-time preview of what the changes will look like.

After that, you can change the appearance of your menu items by clicking the ‘Styling’ menu option.

Shortcode styling menu

Once you are done customizing how your menu items display, make sure to click the ‘Publish’ button.

This won’t make your menu live on your site yet, but it will save the shortcode that we will add to your website below.

Publish menu shortcode

Now, you need to create a page where your menu will display.

To do this, navigate to Pages » All Pages and then click ‘Add New’.

Add page for menu

After that, you can give your page a title. This will appear to your visitors, so you’ll want to name it something like ‘Menu’.

Then, click the ‘+’ icon to add a new block.

Add menu page block

Next, type ‘Menu’ into the search bar.

Then, select the ‘Food Menu’ block.

Select food menu block

After that, you need to select the shortcode you just created from the dropdown menu.

This will insert your menu into your page.

Select menu shortcode

Then, click the ‘Publish’ or ‘Update’ button to make your menu live.

You can also add other elements to this page, like text, a contact form, your Instagram feed, and more.

Publish new menu

Now, when your visitors view your menu, they can view items and even place an order if you add WooCommerce functionality.

No matter the screen size your menu is being viewed on, it will display your menu items perfectly.

WordPress menu example

Bonus Tools to Promote Your Restaurant Website

Now that you have set up your restaurant website with a menu page, you may want to promote it to grow your business.

Following are some of the best tools to help you promote and grow your restaurant business:

  • All in One SEO for WordPress -The best WordPress SEO plugin that helps you optimize your website SEO to get more search traffic. Its Local SEO feature helps people find your restaurant in Google Maps and local search results.
  • WPForms – It is the best form builder plugin for WordPress, allowing you to create any forms for your website. These include contact forms, feedback forms, customer survey forms, and more.
  • OptinMonster – It helps you convert website visitors into subscribers and customers. You can use it to grow your email list and social media following, show targeted messages to customers, and more.
  • PushEngage – This helps you send push notifications to your website visitors regardless of their device type. It also helps you send targeted messages to customers and bring them back to your website.
  • MonsterInsights – The best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It allows you to track where your website visitors are coming from and what they do on your website.

For more plugin recommendations, see our list of must-have WordPress plugins for business websites.

We hope this post helped you learn how to create an online restaurant menu in WordPress. You may also want to see our expert picks of the best payroll software for small business or our comparison of the best business phone services for small business.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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2 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
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  2. Dennis Muthomi

    As someone who’s helped friends set up their websites, I can’t stress enough how important a well-designed online menu is. The method using SeedProd is incredibly helpful and easy to follow. I found the tip about making the menu mobile-responsive especially valuable – it’s crucial in today’s smartphone world.

    One additional suggestion I’d make is to consider adding high-quality photos of your most popular dishes. In my experience, appetizing images can significantly boost customer interest and orders.

    Thanks, WPBeginner, for another fantastic resource.

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