The best restaurant websites have come a long way from the days of simply displaying menu items and contact details. They’ve evolved to evoke a restaurant’s sense of style, and give customers a visual taster of what they might experience during their visit. However, if your competitors already have stunning websites, how do you make yours stand out from the crowd? Easy – with one or two handy free restaurant WordPress plugins.
Fortunately, WordPress has everything you need to create the perfect restaurant website. Not only are there a plethora of fantastic restaurant WordPress themes to choose from, there are also a whole host of plugins available to help enhance your site’s functionality. By choosing plugins that are right for your needs, you can convey your restaurant’s brand effectively and encourage more customers through the door.
With the above in mind, this article reveals our favorite free restaurant WordPress plugins that can help you create an amazing foodie website with ease. Let’s get cracking!
Disclaimer: WPExplorer is an affiliate for one or more products listed below. If you click a link and complete a purchase we could make a commission.
1. ReDi Restaurant Reservation
First up is the ReDi Restaurant Reservation plugin – an option to help manage table bookings, restaurant reservations or availability. Best of all it’s very easy to use.
After setting your opening hours, your establishment’s details, and setting up additional custom fields, customers can view your available time based on their planned date, party size and time, then make a reservation directly from your website. The plugin instantly checks seat availability for the selected time and date, and provides an immediate response. ReDi also includes its own customizable reservation form for you to use, which will notify you as soon as a customer submits a request.
- Instant Availability Check and Response
- Unlimited Reservations
- Email Notifications of Reservations
The plugin offers many additional useful features in the premium version. These include a reservation dashboard for daily operations, customizable work hours, multiple location support, email templates, and more. Plus the plugin integrates with many other platforms and services including Facebook, MailChimp, Zapier, Twillio, NewsLetter, BulkSMS, WooCommerce for prepayments.
2. Restaurant & Cafe Addon for Elementor
What better tool could there be other than a free addon for one of the top free page builder plugins for WordPress? With the free Restaurant & Cafe Addon for Elementor there’s nothing you can’t create for your restaurant site. There are plenty of blocks to choose from to quickly design your pages. Use the more than 35+ blocks in the free plugin to add food items, ingredients lists, full recipes, detailed menus, multiple locations (branches), special offers, pricing tables, operating hours and more. The team at NicheAddons has really thought of everything!
And for more features you can always upgrade to Restaurant & Cafe Addon Pro. This will enable additional restaurant specific blocks for menu addons, layered images, gift cards, OpenTable integration, pricing tabs, banners, etc. Pro versions also include WooCommerce support and custom product elements (food items, menus, product filter and addons) so you can easily offer online ordering right from your own website.
3. Store Hours Manager
This handy plugin makes it easy to set your store hours. Create your own custom daily schedules enabling WooCommerce store functions only when you’re open. And with the handy Take Out & Delivery addon you can even accept orders during your open hours. The addon enables options for pickup time, delivery time/location and scheduling. It also allows for a number of shipping zones and methods for restrictions (for example, free delivery within 1 mile). Other main plugin features include:
- Add custom store hours
- Disable checkout when your store is “closed”
- Add a banner to your site letting customers know if you’re open
- Option to override schedule if needed (eg. for holidays or special events)
4. WP Restaurant Price List
Build a menu for your restaurant with WP Restaurant Price List. This free plugin is a great way to add and organize your offerings making it easy for customers to decide what they want to buy.
To get started, install the plugin and use the options in the new WP Restaurant Price List section to create your menus. When adding a new item you’ll have options for the category, item name, ingredients and price. Once you’ve added items to you menu, you can use the Settings to add a currency symbol, enable decimals and choose a layout (either plain text or text with an image).
The developers also offer a pro version that includes added options for infinite lists, dynamic shortcodes, lightbox popups, custom currency, font and styling options, allergens, product variants and more. Plus WP Restaurant Price List pro also provides support for popular page builders including Gutenberg, Elementor and Visual Composer.
5. MotoPress Restaurant Menu
Every restaurant – be it fine dinging, bar or food truck – will have a menu, but most WordPress themes don’t include this as a built-in option (unless you want to just use the simple list features which is not really that exciting). This is where the MotoPress Restaurant Menu comes into play, and why it’s at the top of our free restaurant WordPress plugins list.
The plugin includes easy options for menu design, categories, unlimited menu items, tags and ingredients. Plus the included shortcode makes inserting your menu onto any page, post or even sidebar super simple. More features include:
- Unlimited menu items
- Menu design options
- Shortcode to insert menu into any text area
- Premium add-ons for online purchases, toppings and delivery
6. Easy Notification Bar
Let customers know about your current deals, new menu item, upcoming event or something else with a notification. Specifically, with Easy Notification Bar. This simple plugin is a great way to bring attention to anything important your restaurant has going on. And there’s even an option to enable the notification bar on your homepage only. Other plugins features for the notice bar include:
- Customizable colors and fonts
- Custom message
- Button link options (add no follow)
7. Five Star Restaurant Menu
Five Star Restaurant Menu enables you to create menus for any restaurant, bar, cafe, or other eatery, and can be displayed in various locations throughout your site.
The plugin is easy to use, and involves the use of two custom post types – Menu Items and Menus. To whip up your full menu, create the individual items using Menu Items, then group them into sections using Menus. Simple! Plus the plugin is Gutenberg compatible and can be easily inserted with a page block. More features at a glance:
- No limit to the number of menus and menu items you can list
- Menus can be displayed in templates, posts, pages, and widgets
- Option to create one or two column menus
- Guidance text that applies to a group of items can be included within sections (e.g. “served with rice”)
- Easy to create templates
8. The Events Calendar
When considering free restaurant WordPress plugins don’t neglect a calendar. Plan on hosting any events at your establishment? Maybe an open mic night? Or a weekend BBQ? Make sure your customers know what’s going on with a customizable Events Calendar!
The Events Calendar by Modern Tribe is one of your best options for creating a simple yet effective event calendar on your website. Add your events, include the organizers (great if you’re hosting a fundraiser), display as a list or daily calendar, insert into sidebar or footer with the included widget and more. Plus the plugin is compatible with top themes (like Total) and is translation ready. With the Events Calendar you can also:
- Add unlimited events
- Save venues/organizers
- Events calendar, list or day view
- Widget for upcoming events
- Google calendar and iCal export
- SEO and translation ready
9. Five Star Restaurant Reservations
Restaurant Reservations is a popular plugin that enables customers to book their tables from your website. With it you can add a simple and customizable reservation form to your site Simply use the shortcode or Gutenberg block to insert your form on any post or page. The plugin offers some helpful features such as email notifications when a reservation is made, and restricting bookings outside of your establishment’s opening hours. The plugin also offers:
- Confirm or reject bookings with just a few clicks
- Customizable e-mail notifications can be sent to customers to provide a receipt of request, confirmation, or rejection
- Bookings can be automatically restricted at specified dates and times
- Booking form can be placed in various site locations such as pages, posts, and widgets
10. RestroPress
The RestroPress plugin is a free way to add an online ordering system for your restaurant. Think of it as the WooCommerce of Food Ordering, since it works in the same way. The plugin adds a custom post type you can use to add food items that can be organized into categories along with payment gateway options, email notifications, taxes and delivery options. Once you’ve setup your restaurant’s options you’ll be able to track payment and order status right form your dashboard.
- Add menu items with custom post type
- Allow for item addons
- Enable pickup and delivery options
- Built-in reporting system
11. WP Store Locator
WP Store Locator is a helpful plugin for any business with a physical location, as it allows visitors to filter locations to see which store is closest to them. It enables you to add a Google Map with all of your store locations to your site. Choose from nine map markers, add store information, customize map terrain and zoom, enable geolocation and more. You can add as many placemarks as you want on the map (and even create clusters) – making this free restaurant WordPress plugin particularly useful for businesses with more than one location. Other features include:
- Unlimited number of stores
- Custom map styles
- Compatible with WPML and qTranslate
- Drag and drop map locations
12. WPPizza
WPPizza was originally designed to cater to pizza delivery businesses, but its flexibility means it’s suitable for any restaurant. It’s a great way to add an online menu and manage orders (cash on delivery). The plugin supports over many currencies, and can generate reports based on sales. It’s also particularly useful for those business offering food in different sized portions, as multiple prices can be set per item. To sum up, WPPizza offers:
- Tracks online orders and generates sales reports
- Customers can opt for different payment options, including cash on delivery
- Extensions available for adding ingredients and tiered delivery pricing
- Supports 140+ currencies
13. Five Star Restaurant Reviews
Good Reviews for WordPress is another plugin from the developer of Food and Drink Menu, and enables you to add customer reviews and testimonials to your posts, pages, and widgets. Also, by using Schema markup, your reviews and testimonials can be integrated into search engine listings – vital for drawing in new business from search queries. Other features include:
- Option to add star or number ratings and reviewer photos to your reviews
- Enables you to add a link to increase the credibility of the review
- Better Search Engine Optimization (SEO) achieved through the use of Schema markup
- Reviews can be organized to show single reviews, all reviews, or categories
14. More Widgets
Add your stores hours and contact info, location on a Google Map and even a bio (complete with picture) to your sidebars with More Widgets. This free plugin is full of helpful widgets most themes are lacking, but as a restaurant or small business you need. Widgets include:
- About us
- Advertisement
- Business info
- Facebook Page
- Social links
- Google Map
- And more
15. Speed Contact Bar
The Speed Contact Bar plugin is a useful addition for any business, enabling you to display a bar at the top of every page of your site showing your establishment’s contact information.
While a plugin of this ilk may seem a little ‘unsexy’, for restaurants employing a theme that doesn’t incorporate contact information into the header, Speed Contact Bar could be crucial. With Speed Contact Bar you’ll have options for:
- Choose which items of contact information to add to the bar
- Size, color, and fonts can be modified
- Phone icon and numbers can be clicked to trigger a phone call
- Social media icons are included
What Are Your Favorite Free Restaurant WordPress Plugins?
In the digital age, consumers are turning to technology more and more to connect them with places to eat. As such, it’s imperative that restaurants stay ahead of the game with their websites – and the easiest way is while a couple free restaurant WordPress plugins.
The plugins featured in this post can all enhance the functionality of your website, enabling you to reach customers effectively, and compelling them to do business with you. Do you have any other great restaurant plugins to recommend? Let us know in the comments section below!
Keep reading the article at WPExplorer. The article was originally written by WordCandy on 2022-04-16 11:44:46.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.