Industry
Restaurants
Commission-free pickup orders and reservations taken on a restaurant's own pages, with the kitchen screen and the guest list behind them.
Updated October 17, 2026
What should a restaurant website include?
A restaurant website should show a menu that reads well on a phone and let guests order pickup or book a table right there, with no app taking a commission. In the back office, every order goes to the kitchen with its pickup time, and every guest lands in one list the restaurant owns.
A restaurant website: A restaurant website is the dining room's front door online. It shows the menu as text a phone can read, and it handles the two things guests come to do: order pickup and book a table. When both happen on the restaurant's own pages, no app takes a commission and the guest's details stay with the house. Behind the scenes it feeds the kitchen, passing each order to the screen or printer with the time it is due.
Key facts
The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns counted 8,214 full-service restaurants with paid employees in Los Angeles County in 2023, employing 169,457 people.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023: Full-service restaurants, Los Angeles County, checked October 17, 2026
California law bars a food delivery platform from arranging delivery of a restaurant's orders without first getting an agreement with that restaurant that expressly authorizes it.
Source: California Business and Professions Code section 22599, checked October 17, 2026
About 81 percent of the 5,143,000 food and beverage serving jobs in the United States in 2025 were in food services and drinking places, by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Food and Beverage Serving and Related Workers, checked October 17, 2026
What a restaurant needs from its site
Whether it is a taco stand or a tasting menu, a restaurant in Los Angeles gets looked up on a phone, often while someone is deciding where to eat that night. So the menu has to be real text, not a PDF that needs pinching and zooming. Once they have read it, they want to act: order pickup or book a table. When both happen on your own pages, the order and the guest stay with you.
- A menu in plain text you can edit from a phone, rather than a PDF
- Pickup orders taken on your own site, with no commission on each one
- Table reservations booked on your own pages, confirmed by text or email
- Catering and private-event requests that end in a quote and a deposit
What the back office needs
An online order only helps if the kitchen sees it at the right moment. The back office passes each one to the kitchen screen or printer with its pickup time, and it stops taking orders for a window once that window is full, so the site never offers a pickup time the line cannot meet.
Every guest who orders or books lands in one list you own, with their order history attached. Catering brings paperwork of its own: a quote, a deposit, a balance, and the date each one comes due.
Supplier invoices are paperwork too, and AI can enter each one in your books for someone to approve, pointing out any item that costs more than it did last time.
- Online orders sent to the kitchen screen or printer with their pickup times
- A cap on orders per pickup window that the kitchen sets for busy nights
- One guest list you own, built from every order and reservation
- Catering invoices that track the deposit and the balance due
- A daily report of online sales by item
Tools most restaurants already use
A restaurant usually runs its tickets through a point of sale and may take bookings through a reservation service as well. The site works alongside both, connecting where each system offers a way in, so nothing has to be ripped out. The names below are ones you will see in many kitchens, listed so you can spot your own; none of them is a recommendation.
- Toast
- Square
- Clover
- OpenTable
- Resy
- DoorDash
- Uber Eats
Common choices, not endorsements.
Delivery apps, or ordering on your own site
Delivery apps put a restaurant in front of people who have never heard of it, and they charge a commission on every order for that reach. Ordering on your own site suits the regulars who already know the menu. Many restaurants keep the apps for discovery and send their regulars to their own site.
| Delivery apps | Ordering on your own site | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per order | A commission the app sets, taken from each order | Card processing, plus a courier fee when you deliver |
| Guest details | The app holds the guest's contact details | Every guest and their order history stay in your list |
| Menu and prices | Shown in the app's layout, beside other restaurants | Your menu and your prices, edited from a phone |
| Busy nights | You can pause the app or lengthen prep times | You set how many orders each pickup window takes |
| The code | The app sets the design and the checkout | Yours to change, with every account in your name |
Swipe sideways to see every column
A worked example (hypothetical)
Picture a family-run noodle shop with a busy takeout counter. Its menu is a PDF, and pickup orders come in by phone in the middle of the dinner rush. Delivery runs through two apps, each taking a commission on every order.
A Growth site would replace the PDF with a menu in plain text, and a price change after launch would come out of the care plan's hours. Its catering form would send each request into the tool the shop already uses.
The shop's own pickup ordering, capped per window and sent to the kitchen screen, is back-office work, and its price grows once card payments and catering invoices are part of it. The shop could go live with the new menu first and switch on ordering after the kitchen has tried it on a slow night. The written plan that follows a short call prices each part.
The concept app
The Pass, below, is a concept we drew for this page, named for the counter where the kitchen hands plates to the floor. Its screens sketch how a restaurant's own orders and bookings could share one system. It is an illustration only: not software anyone can buy, and not the system of any real restaurant.
The Pass
The menu as the owner edits it, with one dish switched to sold out for the night.
A pickup order paid online, with the guest's notes and the time it is due.
Tonight's reservations by seating time, each with its party size and table notes.
A catering invoice showing the deposit received and the balance still due before the event.
Common questions
Can I take online orders without paying a commission on each one?
Yes, when the orders come through your own site. You pay card processing on each order rather than a commission to an app. Delivery is the part that still costs extra, because a courier service charges for each trip.
Can guests reserve a table on my own website?
Yes. If you already use a reservation service, its booking widget sits on your site and your book stays where it is. If you would rather not pay for one, a simple request form with set seating times can live in the back office instead.
Should I leave the delivery apps?
That is your call, and it does not have to be all or nothing. Your own ordering is meant for the guests who already know you, so the receipt and the bag can send them to your site next time, while the apps keep serving everyone else.
My point of sale already has online ordering. Why build anything?
You may not need to. If the ordering built into your point of sale fits how the kitchen works, the new site should link to it, and we would tell you so. A custom build earns its place only when the kitchen needs something that ordering does not do.
Can the menu show allergens and dietary notes?
Yes. Each dish carries the notes you write, such as vegetarian or contains nuts, and guests can filter the menu by them. The wording stays yours, since only the kitchen knows what it can promise.
Can catering orders be paid online?
They can, once the build includes card payments. A request becomes a quote you approve, then an invoice the guest pays by card, with the deposit first and the balance before the event.
Start with a written plan
Tell us about the business and what you need. We reply with questions, then a written plan that lists the work and its price, and nothing starts until you have read it.