Your website is real purty but just about useless
March 31st, 2008 by Cliff Bostock in Food & Life, Restaurants
Here’s a question we’d love answered: Why do so many restaurants not include their (damn) hours of operation on their website?
Do web designers know something we don’t know? Do people go to restaurant websites mainly to look at the flash graphics and glamor pictures of chefs? Or do they go to hear the sounds of people chattering and raking silverware over plates or to hear repetitive, banal mood music?
Do the people who design websites and the people who hire them have any clue how incredibly annoying it is when basic information is missing?
Sunday, I planned to go to Vita for dinner. I checked out the website and found no mention of hours. So I called the restaurant, thinking, “Well, surely, their voice mail system will state the hours.” Nope, no voice mail at all.
Then I looked up the new Cakes and Ale in Decatur. Same deal. No mention on the website of hours and no voice mail message.
Around 6 p.m., I called Vita again and got an answer! Yay!
“Are you open?” I asked.
“Yes,” the perky person replied.
“What time do you close?” I asked.
“Oh, we’re only open for a private event tonight,” she said.
Whatever!
Vita and Cakes and Ale are just the most recent I’ve encountered that don’t post their hours. The phenomenon is widespread. Stop it!
(Photo from maedeans.blogspot.com.)
March 31st, 2008 at 4:25 pm
point well taken…I usually check out the web page before deciding to try a new (for us) restaurant and get upset you I get the sense that I am wasting my time.
To your list I would add as essential info that is sometimes missing: parking situation, prices for the menu items (I guess if no prices are present, then they are as high as they can get).
April 1st, 2008 at 9:53 am
Add Highland Bakery to the list!
April 1st, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I think the reason is obvious (although I don’t agree with it): businesses don’t want to go to the hassle of contacting their webmaster to have to change the info if it changes (or *gasp* have to change it themselves), nor do they want to be held accountable if they don’t change the info listed on the website (e.g. hours, prices). While you or I might think, “hey, the information might come in real handy”, I believe lots of businesses think/or have suffered from potential patrons coming in especially for, say, the “Monday 2-for-1 Mojitos” posted on the website only to find out that it’s no longer the promotion being offered that night…or maybe it’s Bottomless Sangria Monday now. I think business would rather have patrons call on a case by case basis rather than be held to an “immutable” website standard…even if it means it might anger some people that they can’t find the information online. While you might think differently, Cliff, I think many businesses would rather deal with the patrons annoyance of having to call, as opposed to them coming into the business and getting REALLY angry, trying to hold them to the website (”But on the website, the crawfish platter is $23, not $27! That’s false advertising!!; or “We drove ALL THE WAY FROM BUFORD to come to your restaurant, because it says you’re open till 11pm tonight…you can’t just close at 9:30pm tonight!”
April 1st, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I think restaurants, at least the ones with money to spend on such things, should demand that their web sites be built on a good content management system so they can update the info easily in a browser window instead of having to go through a web pro for edits (or else that one part time employee who knows how to write code or use a web dev software).
A Flash-based site would be impossible with this setup I suggest, but I for one wouldn’t miss the Flash graphics.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:56 am
Cliff continues to change the world! Cakes and Ales site has been updated to include hours.