[jcnnghm]

I have about 120 paying restaurant customers, and I couldn't agree more about the PDF menu. You could give them the slickest, easiest interface in the world, and they'll never use it. They don't have time. The PDF menu already looks good, they already put a ton of time into it to get it exactly right, and they don't want to duplicate that effort. Restaurant menus are meticulously laid out and a lot of effort is put into their creation. It would take a lot more time, and a whole lot more money than 95% of restauranteurs would be willing to put into it to create HTML menus. It would be very difficult to generate a menu creation tool that would please even a small percentage of restaurant owners, since they all want wildly different things, and are almost universally very picky about their menu.

There is exactly one reason why most restaurants have bad websites, and that is money. The average price they're willing to pay for a website is $500-1800. It's rare to hear of one paying over $2,500. It's not necessarily that they're cheap, it's that they have no money, or think they don't need it at all, so only want the bare minimum. The good restaurants don't need a website, they have a two hour wait every time it isn't raining, and the restaurants that do need a good website have no money.

Most people grossly overestimate the profitability and ease of running a restaurant. I estimate that as many as 40% of restaurants are run unprofitably in perpetuity because the economics of the location are impossible. The owner purchases the restaurant, runs it for two or three years, runs out of money, sells it to the new owner who runs it unprofitably for two or three years, runs out of money, and the cycle repeats. You probably sit in restaurants like this regularly and think, "This place must be a goldmine, it's always packed." It isn't, it's a money pit and the next guy that buys it is going to discover that as well. If you are thinking of starting a restaurant to make money, I suggest you purchase the land and build a building that can house a restaurant, then lease the space to someone else, it's the only reliable way.

Running a restaurant is also a lot more difficult than most people think, and many owners amplify the difficulty by having little or no business management experience or training. They got into it thinking it would be easy, and thought they could handle it because they've been eating in restaurants forever. Take order, cook food, serve food, simple stuff, right? Restaurant employees are always stealing from the restaurant, especially the bartenders. Customers can be very, very difficult. The staff will be flaky. There will be problems, constantly and forever. It's not easy.

[mgkimsal]

The PDF menu already looks good, they already put a ton of time into it to get it exactly right, and they don't want to duplicate that effort.

Well... why bother cleaning the outside of your restaurant - washing the windows, trimming the landscaping, cleaning around the dumpster, etc? They've already put so much effort in to making the inside of the restaurant look perfect, why duplicate that effort?

A good website - fast loading, clean info, nice pics, optimized for the web - gets people to decide to spend money with you by coming in. A nice custom menu gets people to decide how they'll spend money with you (and how much).

This shouldn't be an either/or decision, but it appears the majority of owners don't think this far ahead. Given the little I've known about restaurant owners (worked in a few restaurants growing up), this is not at all surprising.

[jcnnghm]

They do that stuff because it doesn't really cost money, and because if they don't, they will always have empty tables. It's as simple as telling the existing staff to go do it.

The good website you are describing probably costs at least $5k, which is more than they have to spend. It also means they have to find someone that can do the work, tell them what they want, pay them, manage them, and evaluate the output. It's time consuming and expensive.

[gaius]

Restaurant menu design is a highly specialized field, and there are many companies around that just do that. Everything makes a difference, the layout, the fonts, etc etc.

[JoeAltmaier]

Um, many don't clean outside. I can't count the number of restaurants I've had to walk thru a minefield to reach from their parking lot. Old broken kitchen equipment parked out in the rain, broken cement, rusty signs, litter under every half-dead bush and tree.

[bosie]

If you don't mind me asking, are you running those 120 paying restaurant customers as a SAAS type of deal or is each an independent individual?

[jodrellblank]

The good restaurants don't need a website, they have a two hour wait every time it isn't raining, and the restaurants that do need a good website have no money.

If a website was essential, it would be worth borrowing to get one made.

Is it not, or are they unable?

[jcnnghm]

They usually can't get any more credit either. I've had everybody from small local restaurants to large national chains bounce checks. It's not uncommon for food and alcohol distributors to require that some accounts pay in advance with certified checks for this reason.

They have to borrow to open, and costs are always higher than expected. This causes them to cut things from their budget, like websites. They can't get more credit later because the business isn't putting up the numbers and they are already having difficulty paying all their bills. A banker will hand you an umbrella when it's sunny, and take it away as soon as it starts raining.

[phishphood]

as someone who ran a restaurant a night club -- everything above is correct.