How to put your restaurant menu online

The simplest way to take a restaurant or cafe online in Lebanon is a menu website: your dishes in clear sections, each with a photo, a short line and a price, your opening hours and address in view, and an "Order on WhatsApp" button that opens a chat with the dish already written. You confirm each order yourself, on your own number, and the customer orders again next week with the same link.

This guide covers how to organise the menu, what each dish needs, how to handle WhatsApp orders at busy times, and when a full cart and checkout makes sense.

Why a menu website when you already have Instagram

• A photo of a printed menu is hard to read on a phone, and it is out of date the day you change a price.
• A PDF menu has to be downloaded, zoomed and scrolled sideways.
• Instagram posts show the food beautifully, but nobody can find last month's price in a feed.
• People search for "manakish near me" or a dish and an area. A menu with real text can be found.

Delivery apps bring new customers, at a commission. A menu link of your own lets your regulars order directly, and you keep the relationship.

Organise the menu in sections

Follow the order of your printed menu, the way people read a Lebanese menu at the table:

1. Cold mezze
2. Hot mezze
3. Salads
4. Grills or main dishes
5. Sandwiches and wraps
6. Desserts
7. Drinks

Five to nine sections is plenty. A customer should see the whole structure in two scrolls on a phone. Put your best sellers at the top of each section, and keep seasonal or daily dishes in their own section so they are easy to switch on and off.

What every dish needs

• A name customers recognise. Use the name your regulars use.
• One line on what is in it, with anything people need to know: spicy, vegetarian, contains nuts.
• A price in US dollars. If a dish comes in sizes (small and large, half kilo and kilo, a sandwich or a plate), list each size with its own price.
• A real photo, taken in daylight, from above for mezze and at a low angle for burgers and sandwiches. The same plate and table across the menu makes it look like one place.

If a dish has no fixed price (a catering tray, a cake to order), say so and invite people to ask.

Hours, address and delivery area up front

Before ordering, every customer asks three things: are you open, where are you, and do you deliver to me. Answer them at the top of the page:

• Opening hours, including the day you close.
• The address with a map link, and parking if it is hard to find.
• Where you deliver, the delivery fee per area, the minimum order and how long it takes. Our guide to delivery for online shops in Lebanon covers zones and fees.
• A phone number for people who would rather call.

Taking orders on WhatsApp, step by step

1. The customer taps "Order on WhatsApp" on a dish. WhatsApp opens with a message like "Hi, I'd like to order a mixed grill", with the link.
2. You reply with the full order and the total, delivery included, and the time it will arrive.
3. You confirm the address: area, street, building, floor, a landmark and, if possible, a location pin.
4. You confirm the payment: cash to the driver (say in which currency, and whether the driver has change) or Whish before delivery.
5. The order goes to the kitchen, and the customer gets a short message when the driver leaves.

Prepare these replies in advance. The WhatsApp Business app lets you save quick replies, so the total, the delivery time and your address are one tap away at 8 pm on a Friday.

Busy hours without chaos

• One person owns WhatsApp during service, not whoever is free.
• Take a dish off the menu the moment it runs out, instead of apologising in every chat.
• Write each order down in one place as it is confirmed: a sheet, a notebook, or the till. Orders kept only in chats get lost at the worst moment.
• Say when you are full. "Orders are taking 60 minutes tonight" is better than a late delivery.

When a cart and checkout makes sense

WhatsApp ordering works well while you can answer every chat yourself. When you start missing messages, a full checkout takes the typing out of it: the customer builds the order, picks the delivery area or pickup, chooses a time slot, and pays cash on delivery or by Whish, and you receive a complete order with the address and total.

Building it with Mahallat

Mahallat has a template made for this, Menu: it reads like a printed menu card, with dish names joined to their price by a dotted line and arched photos. A new store on Menu starts in catalog mode, so customers order through you rather than through a checkout.

• The full menu on one page, with a heading where each section starts: one column on phones, two on desktop. Your categories are the sections.
• Every dish has its photo, description and price, sizes as options with their own price, and two ways to order: "Order on WhatsApp", which opens your number with the dish and its link written, and "Order this", a short form for people who would rather you call them.
• Orders from the form land in the Inquiries inbox of your dashboard, with an email and a push on your phone. You reply on WhatsApp in one tap.
• Hours and directions: a line for today's hours on the home page, a practical strip under it (hours, where, delivery, booking) you can rewrite, and a contact page with your opening hours, address with directions and phone. "Order on WhatsApp" and "Call" stay within reach.
• A dish set to draft disappears from the menu until it is back. A price of 0 reads "Price on request".

When you are ready for a cart, switch the store to Online shop in Settings: customers then check out with your delivery zones, time slots, pickup, cash on delivery or Whish. Orders you confirm on WhatsApp can also be added as manual orders, and sales at the counter can be logged in seconds, so all of it shows up in the same analytics.

See the Menu template, Mahallat for restaurants, or open the demo kitchen in the live demo. Every new store starts with a 14-day free trial, no card needed, then plans start at $20 a month: see pricing.