Takeaway website with online ordering: keep the order, keep the margin

Most takeaways in the North East take a large share of their orders through delivery apps. The apps bring customers, but every order pays them a percentage, and the customer belongs to the app, not to you. Your own website can take those same orders, with the money going to you and the customer’s details staying with you.

The catch is that an ordering website has to be as quick and trustworthy as the apps people are used to, or they’ll go straight back to them. I built Hank Marvins, my takeaway studio project for Seaham, as a complete working ordering system to show what that involves. This guide walks through the parts that matter.

A PDF of your paper menu can’t take an order. An ordering menu needs every dish set up with the choices customers actually make: sizes, bread, salad, sauces, extras, make-it-a-meal and a note to the kitchen. The price has to update as they choose, and meal deals have to add up correctly every time.

Just as important, the price has to be worked out by the website’s server, not the customer’s browser. That way nobody can tamper with a basket and pay £1 for a family feast.

Give each menu section its own page, so “kebabs in Seaham” or “fish and chips Murton” can find you in search.
Photograph the food in your own packaging. Customers can tell stock photos, and your boxes make every picture look like your shop.
Let staff mark a dish or a single option as sold out in one tap, so nobody orders what you can’t make.

Delivery that knows your area

Customers want to know whether you deliver to them before they fill a basket. Set delivery zones by postcode sector (SR7 7, SR7 8 and so on), each with its own fee, minimum order and free-delivery threshold, and let people check their postcode first. The checkout should enforce the same rules, so an order below the minimum simply can’t go through.

Card payments you can trust

Card details should never touch your website. A hosted checkout from an established payment provider takes the card, and your site is told when the payment has gone through. Two details separate a solid system from a risky one:

Orders only reach the kitchen once payment is confirmed, by a signed message from the payment provider that your site verifies, so a declined card never gets cooked.
Each confirmation is applied once. Payment providers sometimes send the same message twice; a well-built site records every one and ignores the repeat, so an order is never placed twice.

Cash on collection or delivery can sit alongside cards, and it’s worth keeping for regulars who prefer it.

Allergen information, handled properly

When food is sold online, the Food Standards Agency’s guidance is that allergen information must be available to the customer before they complete the order and again when the food is delivered, whether that’s on the website, by phone or both. A line that says “ask us” isn’t enough on its own.

The reliable way to do it is one allergen record per ingredient and sauce, confirmed from the product label or your supplier’s specification, with every dish built from those records. Change the garlic mayo you buy and every dish that uses it updates at once. Choose a different sauce in the basket and the allergen list changes with it, through to the kitchen ticket. Anything not yet confirmed should say so plainly rather than looking allergen-free.

Ask every customer whether anyone in the order has an allergy, show it in red on the kitchen screen, and don’t let the order be accepted until someone has checked it.

A screen for the kitchen

Online orders are no good if they arrive as emails nobody reads on a Friday night. A kitchen board on a tablet by the pass shows new orders with a sound alert, every option in full, the collection or delivery time and any allergy, and lets staff accept, set a ready time, mark it out for delivery and print a ticket. The customer’s order page updates as the kitchen moves it along, so they stop ringing to ask where it is.

Controls the owner can use

Menus change weekly. You should be able to change a price, add a special, retire a topping or switch off delivery for the night yourself, from the same staff area, without calling a developer. Keep a record of who changed prices and allergen information and when; if a customer ever queries what the menu said, you’ll have the answer.

Fast on a phone

Almost every takeaway order is placed on a phone, often on mobile data. A heavy homepage film or a slow menu loses orders before anyone sees the food. The Hank Marvins homepage has a scroll-driven burger film and still scores 96 for performance on Google’s mobile test, because the film only loads once the headline is on screen. I’ve written up how that speed fix worked.

Common questions

Will customers really order direct instead of through an app?

Some will always use the apps. Your regulars, and anyone who finds you on Google or sees your website on your menus, bags and social posts, will happily order direct if it’s as easy. Every one of those orders keeps the commission in your pocket.

Can I still use the delivery apps as well?

Yes. Many takeaways keep the apps for reach and use their own website for regulars and repeat orders.

Do I need my own drivers?

For delivery through your own website, yes, or collection-only to start with. You set the zones you can cover.

What happens if I’m too busy?

The owner can switch the shop to “busy” to add time to every order, or close online ordering for the evening with one tap.

What it costs

An online ordering system with payments, delivery zones and a kitchen screen is custom functionality, so it’s Bespoke, from £995, quoted after a conversation about your menu and how your kitchen runs. If you only need a menu, photos and a call button for now, Growth at £595 gets you a proper site that you can add ordering to later. See my prices, read about restaurant and café website design, or get in touch for a fixed quote.