Restaurant Website Design

[Flavortown]

My father is reopening a second restaurant in NJ with a new name and concept some time this month, and has yet to establish a website for it. His first restaurant's site has been run by a customer and friend for a long time - it's boring, annoying, and lacks a lot of features that I think would go a long way toward increasing business. So, I'd like to step in and play a role in the creation of the site for this new place.

That brings me to my question: does anybody have suggestions for resources, tools, and guides for designing and hosting a restaurant website? I have some experience working with html, but beyond that, I'm a novice. I don't expect to pull off anything astounding or artistic, but at least something simple and functional (e.g. easy to navigate, with a working email list, easy to update regularly, etc.).

Thanks,

Gennaro

[collije]

One approach is to buy a very moderately-priced premade website "template", and then customize / tweak from there [replace logo, etc]. You'll probably need someone who moderate website coding/design skills to modify the template to your liking.

These templates can be built using more basic coding standards [html, CSS] or more advanced / flashier ones like Flash. There are a # of online webstores that focused solely on these templates. Some sites to peruse [at least for ideas]:

• TemplateMonster [link directly to Cafe/Restaurant]
  
• Template Factory
  

[ktmoomau]

You could always go blog style- many places do that and Wordpress and Typepad are exceptionally easy to use, and there are a ton of skins you can buy? Just don't use flash- it bugs the bejesus out of iphone users.

[Flavortown]

Just don't use flash- it bugs the bejesus out of iphone users.

Haha, that's one of the few conclusions I came to quickly - every time I hit one of those sites on my iphone it drives me crazy.

Thanks for the suggestions. So far my searching has turned up these two website builders. The first would probably be sufficient if it weren't for the lack of a built in email system and sign up form, but the latter seems pretty good:

http://www.letseat.at/

http://www.networksolutions.com/business-solutions/index.jsp