Why your restaurant still needs a website in 2025

Relying solely on third-party apps like DoorDash or ChowNow limits your restaurant’s visibility, control, and customer retention, thats why your restaurant still needs a website in 2025, it is clear when you consider the benefits of SEO, branding, and long-term growth.

Even in 2025, when most customers find restaurants through their phones, voice assistants, or apps like DoorDash, many restaurant owners make the critical mistake of assuming they no longer need a dedicated website. The logic seems sound at first glance, if someone can search for your name and find you on Google, Yelp, or DoorDash, why maintain your own site? But this convenience hides long-term consequences. A restaurant’s digital presence should do more than just confirm that it exists. It should control how the brand is represented, convert search traffic into real customers, and provide a consistent, fast-loading, user-friendly experience across all devices. Only a dedicated, SEO-optimized website can deliver that level of value and ownership.

Why your restaurant still needs a website in 2025

Relying solely on third-party platforms like DoorDash, Uber Eats, Google Maps, or social media gives those companies the power over your restaurant’s online presence. When a customer finds your business through one of those channels, they’re seeing you through someone else’s lens. Your menu might be out of date. Your photos might be low-quality or user-submitted. The page might display competitors or promote discounts you didn’t authorize. And most importantly, you’re paying for every single transaction either through fees, commissions, or missed upsell opportunities. According to a 2024 study by Square, more than 78% of diners still search online before trying a new restaurant, and 68% of them say they’re more likely to order from or visit a business if the business has a professional-looking website.

Google Search has evolved significantly in recent years, but it still favors websites that are structured for visibility. When customers search for phrases like “best tacos near me,” “late-night pizza delivery,” or “vegan brunch in [city],” they’re not looking for DoorDash listings. They’re looking for informative, trustworthy, fast-loading websites that answer their query. These sites get the top spots in organic search results. Restaurants that rely solely on app profiles or third-party directories rarely rank for these kinds of local SEO keywords. A well-designed, optimized website opens the door to much more than just branded search, customers can find you based on food type, hours, amenities, reviews, and more.

Brand control is another huge factor. A restaurant’s identity is built around more than just a name or a logo. It’s about ambiance, mission, values, voice, food philosophy, and local personality. When your only online presence is a templated listing inside a delivery app, that voice gets lost. Your brand gets flattened. A website lets you tell your story your way, whether through photos, blog posts, staff bios, or custom promotions. You get to decide what images are featured, what specials are shown, what events are highlighted, and what message is conveyed to your visitors. In contrast, third-party platforms are designed for standardization. Every restaurant looks the same. Every listing has the same layout. You become just another name on a list, and customers have little reason to choose you beyond a thumbnail photo or a star rating.

Another growing consideration is performance and mobile experience. Customers expect restaurant websites to load in under three seconds, work flawlessly on mobile, and make online ordering or reservations simple. Modern restaurant websites built in 2025 are optimized for these needs. They’re designed to work with search engines, comply with ADA accessibility, load quickly even on slower mobile connections, and offer a great experience across all devices. Third-party delivery sites and app pages, on the other hand, often bog down under ads, pop-ups, or unoptimized code, which leads to higher bounce rates and lost customers. You don’t get to control that experience when you don’t own the platform.

Some restaurant owners fall into the trap of thinking that a website is unnecessary because their POS provider includes a “free” web page or because their business is already listed on DoorDash or ChowNow. But those free or bundled pages are not websites in the true sense, they are glorified order portals with minimal SEO value. They don’t rank well in search results, they don’t give you brand control, and they don’t allow for full customization. They also can’t capture leads or run marketing campaigns, nor do they usually integrate with tools like Google Analytics or Meta Pixel for tracking and remarketing. You get what you pay for, and in this case, that means sacrificing long-term growth for short-term convenience.

Why MarketByte websites outperform DoorDash and ChowNow for long-term restaurant growth

Take the comparison between MarketByte and DoorDash. DoorDash offers a basic business profile and handles online ordering for a fee. While that might seem like a decent solution, restaurants pay up to 30% commission on every order and have no control over how their business appears or performs on the platform. The search visibility is limited to DoorDash users. In contrast, a website powered by MarketByte is designed to bring in organic traffic from Google, not just from app users. It keeps customers ordering directly through you, with no commissions, while also offering total control over branding, content, and analytics. Instead of being buried among 20 other taco places in an app, you show up in local search results for customers actively looking for exactly what you offer.

Now compare MarketByte to ChowNow. ChowNow positions itself as a low-cost online ordering solution for restaurants, often included with POS systems. But again, the sites they provide are very limited in terms of SEO, customization, or marketing. They don’t build a real presence on the open web, they build a walled garden. You’re limited in design and content, and your site typically won’t rank well in Google search results unless someone searches for your exact name. ChowNow’s templates also tend to look generic, offer limited brand storytelling, and don’t give you full access to the tools and integrations you need to grow. MarketByte sites are full-featured, search-optimized websites designed to convert local traffic and support long-term digital marketing goals. That makes a huge difference when competing for attention in a crowded restaurant scene.

Restaurants that own their websites also gain a marketing advantage. You can run ads that link directly to your menu or special events page. You can post new seasonal dishes or themed nights, or blog about your chef’s inspirations and get indexed in Google for it. You can use schema markup to enhance how your site appears in search results, like showing hours, ratings, and even delivery links right on the results page. You can install tools for A/B testing, heatmaps, and conversion tracking to refine your digital strategy over time. None of these advantages exist if your only presence is on a third-party platform or inside a POS system’s limited template.

Data ownership is another overlooked benefit. When customers visit your website, you can understand how they found you, what pages they looked at, how long they stayed, and what actions they took. You can build retargeting audiences for social ads or create email lists for future promotions. But when customers order through DoorDash or ChowNow, you don’t get that data. Those companies do. You lose insight into who your customers are, how often they return, and how to best serve them in the future. In an industry where margins are tight and competition is high, having access to this kind of insight can be the difference between growing steadily or stagnating.

Perhaps the most important argument is future-proofing. As platforms change, so do their rules. A policy update or algorithm tweak on Google or DoorDash could drastically affect your visibility overnight. Businesses that rely entirely on third parties are at their mercy. But when you own your website, your domain, and your content, you control your destiny. You can evolve with customer trends, update your messaging, add new technology, and stay ahead of the curve. In 2025, having that level of independence and flexibility is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.

Just because your restaurant appears in Google Maps or has a DoorDash page doesn’t mean you're discoverable in meaningful ways. Those platforms were built for convenience, not for restaurant growth. They exist to serve their users, not your brand. While they can supplement your marketing efforts, they should never replace a website that is fully yours. Building a website in 2025 is not just about putting up a menu and an address, it’s about carving out a space online that you control, where you can engage with customers directly, tell your story authentically, and grow on your terms. Whether your goal is more foot traffic, increased takeout orders, or just a stronger local brand, the best place to start is with a website that’s truly yours.

About the Author

Freeman Lightner

Website Programming & Design

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Freeman has been designing and developing websites for over a decade, working with companies of all sizes. He has a master’s degree in cybersecurity from MSU in Missouri. When he’s not coding, you can find him spending time with his family or enjoying the outdoors.