Websites for cafés & farm shops
Your feed looks delicious. Your website should too.
Most café websites are where appetite goes to die: a stock photo, a PDF menu from two prices ago, opening hours Google doesn’t believe. Yours should look the way the counter looks at eight in the morning.
The problems, as you'd put them
- “The menu's a photo of a PDF and it's wrong since the flour price went up.”
- “Google says we're open bank holidays. We are not open bank holidays.”
- “Instagram does the work but you can't order a hamper through Instagram.”
- “Tourists find the chains because we're invisible on the map.”
What your site should do about it
A menu that’s live text, never a PDF.Change a price at the till, it changes on the site. Google can read it, phones don’t pinch-zoom it, and the specials board can actually be special.
Hours that update Google. One edit updates the site and the map listing together — no more apologising to someone standing outside a locked door.
Click & collect, when you want it. The middle ground short of full e-commerce: hampers, Sunday orders, the Christmas rush — ordered ahead, paid online, collected at the counter.
For farm shops: the produce story told properly — who grew it, when it landed, why the eggs are worth it. That story is the margin.
Being found locally
“Café near me” and “farm shop near me” are map searches by hungry people. Winning them takes a Google Business Profile with photos that do the food justice, hours that are actually right, and a site that backs both up. All part of the build — and the free audit will tell you how visible you are today.
A wet Saturday, for example
A family on a beach-that-didn’t-happen searches “farm shop café near me”. They find you, the menu photo makes the decision, and the pre-order for a birthday hamper goes in while they’re still in the car park. See exactly this working in the Melin Onnen demo — a fictional farm shop kitchen you can prod, click-and-collect included.
Fair questions
Instagram already works for us. Why pay for a website?
Instagram is the shop window; the website is the counter. The feed can’t hold your hours, your menu, your story or an order button — and it shows you to followers, not to the hungry stranger searching the map.
Who keeps the menu up to date?
You, from your phone, in the time it takes to steam milk — or the care plan does it: text the change over and it’s live.
Do we need a full online shop?
Probably not, honestly. Full e-commerce means stock counts and postage headaches; most cafés and farm shops want click-and-collect for a handful of things people genuinely pre-order. Start there — it can grow later if the orders demand it.
What it costs
Own it outright from £1,995, or fully managed from £299 a month with nothing up front — which suits seasonal cashflow: the quiet months don’t carry a lump sum. Everything’s on the pricing page.