Funny as hell long overdue skewering of restaurant websites
Very overdue. It can be infuriating to find simple things like menus and hours when those should be front and center.
Here’s hoping it has some influence.
It’s difficult to count no-support-for-flash as a feature of the iPhone, but in this case it is. A quick way to figure out if a website is going to suck is if you can’t navigate it without Flash, and restaurant websites seem to have a very high incidence.
Good article.
That site for the Italian place in Houston is hilarious!
Same situation for may wine producer web sites, I find. Especially Champagne producers
Thanks for the pointer - as someone who relies heavily on an iPhone/iPad, glitzy restaurant websites mostly don’t work at all. (The French Laundry’s website is just a blank white screen.) The description of a simple, clean site as a “beautiful business card” is perfect.
Thanks for the link to the article. It never ceases to amaze me how crappy many restaurant websites are, especially when it comes to simple, easy-to-navigate links to the menu. Especially when it’s “we change our menu every five seconds based on what’s fresh at the local farmers’ market, so we can’t possibly tell you in advance what we’re serving or what it will cost.”
But let’s be clear where restaurant websites REALLY suck–the “wine list.” Often the wines aren’t really listed at all, or they don’t have vintages/prices, and/or the website list is horribly out of date. As in a list that turns out to be 3-4+ years out of date. And no mention of BYOB/corkage policies, so you have to call and bother someone about their corkage policy, who often doesn’t know and then puts you on hold to talk to the manager…
A good restaurant website has:
- Hours/map/direction/contact info.
- Menu with prices.
- Wine list with prices.
- Enough photos to give me a sense of what it looks like.
If they want to add additional categories about the chef, the chef’s family, the chef’s scooter/car/yacht, the chef’s cat, the chef’s take on Zen philosophy, and the chef’s dental records, then put it in a separate area where I can avoid it UNLESS I decide I want to read it…
Bruce
I had to chime in on this…I was going to go to Maudes Liquor Bar here in Chicago next week for dinner…this Web Site sucks!! Confusing, pretentious…ugh. Check out the top and what is says next to fax number. I have heard good things about the food here, but I am feeling if the website is any indicator, will be hipster douchebag place…
We should keep a list of bad restaurant websites.
I hate when you have to download a .pdf of the menu – just let me look at the menu on the site.
Jay, Maude’s is pretty decent, though it does skew somewhat young and hip. It’s pretty “comfortable” – more homey than stark, no crazy loud techno music, etc. (I’ve only been downstairs, they have an upstairs too). The food is pretty tasty (albeit a limited menu) and not bad pricing. The wine list was only ok, but reasonably priced.
I hope you enjoy.
Pdf on its own not a problem— but folk should keep in mind that when they call the document ‘dinner.pdf’, and you go to another site, and their menu is called ‘dinner.pdf’, and you are trying to quickly access one in your Downloads folder, well… a few extra keystrokes to put your restaurant name in the title would be very nice.
Most italian wine producers web sites are horrible too.
I think the fax comment is funny. seriously, when are you ever going to fax a bar before first making a phone call. when was the last time a fax was your first communication with a restaurant or bar?
Eh; Maude’s is great as is Gilt Bar, Brendan Sodikoff’s other restaurant. Just order Champagne -preferably rose- and have a few people to share (more important for Maude’s).
That is all.
Perfect.
+1
That is awesome.
theOatmeal is made of pure awesome.
Here’s a particularly horrible website;
It took me about 5 minutes to find their hours.
This site is pure 100% win. “Why I’d rather be punched in the testicles than call customer service” is genius. LMFAO.