Restaurant Website With Online Ordering, No Commission

Delivery apps bring you orders, then keep a slice of every one. On a busy night that slice is your margin. A restaurant website with online ordering puts the order, the customer and the money back in your hands. This guide covers how to set one up, what it costs you in effort, and how to run the orders once they arrive.

Why marketplaces cost more than their commission

A delivery marketplace charges a percentage of each order it sends you. That is the visible cost. The less visible costs matter just as much.

• You do not own the customer. The app keeps their name, number and order history, so you cannot tell them about a new menu.
• You compete on the same screen as everyone else. A hungry customer scrolls past you to the place with a bigger discount.
• The rules can change. Fees, rankings and promotion costs are set by the platform, not by you.

Marketplaces are still useful for discovery. The goal is not to leave them overnight. It is to move your regulars onto a channel you own, where an order costs you nothing extra.

What a restaurant website with online ordering needs

A restaurant website with online ordering has two jobs: show people what you sell, and take the order cleanly. Most owners get the first right and fumble the second.

A menu people can actually use

Your menu should be real text on the page, not a photo of a printed menu. Text loads fast on a phone, reads well to search engines and can be updated in seconds. Group it the way customers think: pizzas, sides, drinks, desserts. Show the price, and say plainly whether it is a pick up or delivery price.

Clear ways to get the food

Say exactly how someone gets their order: pick up, delivery or dine in. Give the wait time, the delivery area and any minimum spend. A customer who has to guess what delivery costs will go back to the app that tells them.

An ordering and payment step

This is where customers place and pay for the order. You have three realistic options.

1. A direct ordering provider. A dedicated ordering tool linked from your website. You pay a subscription or processing fee, not a marketplace commission.
2. Order ahead, pay at the counter. The customer orders, you confirm, and they pay when they collect. There is no payment setup, and it suits pick up.
3. Phone orders from the website. A prominent tap to call button. It is old fashioned but free, and many regulars prefer it.

A back of house that can keep up

Orders arriving online are only half the system. If the kitchen tracks them on paper dockets or in a group chat, a busy service turns into lost orders and cold food. More on that below.

Restaurant website with online ordering: your options compared

• Delivery marketplace. Cost: a percentage of every order. You own the customer data: no. Setup: low. Best for reaching new customers.
• Direct ordering provider linked from your site. Cost: a subscription or processing fee. Customer data: yes. Setup: medium. Best for regular orders paid by card.
• Order ahead, pay at pick up. Cost: nothing beyond your website. Customer data: yes. Setup: low. Best for cafes and takeaway with a pick up counter.
• Phone orders from your website. Cost: nothing beyond your website. Customer data: partly. Setup: very low. Best for small menus and loyal regulars.

Many restaurants run two at once: a marketplace for discovery, and a direct channel that regulars are nudged towards with a flyer in the bag or a note on the receipt.

Running the orders: from docket to kitchen board

However the order comes in, the kitchen needs to see it, work it and hand it over. A status board does this better than paper.

An orders board is a set of columns, one for each stage an order passes through, such as New, In the oven and Ready. Each order is a card. When the pizza goes in, someone drags the card to the next column. Anyone glancing at the screen can see what is waiting, what is cooking and what is ready to go.

For the board to be useful rather than decorative, it needs:

• A way to add an order straight from the screen, including phone and walk in orders.
• Orders made of real items. An order links to the menu items in it, so names and prices stay right when the menu changes.
• The ability to change or cancel an order without starting again.
• Search and filters, so you can find the order for Sam at 7.15 in a second.

Multi-store setups

If you run more than one store, every order needs to belong to a store. Each store should see only its own board, while you can see all of them. That is the difference between a shared chaos screen and a system each manager trusts.

How Diract fits in

Diract builds business apps and websites from a plain English description of your business. For a restaurant, that covers two of the pieces above.

The website. Start from the restaurant template and Diract builds the whole site: menu pages, the pick up and delivery details, store information and contact pages. You change anything by clicking it on the page. A contact form sends to the address you connect, and until it is connected it tells visitors to call or email instead of quietly losing their message. The template includes a shop, so the ordering step can be your own. A customer adds dishes to their bag and orders from the Bag and checkout block, giving a name and email, and a phone number and a note if they want. Once card payments are set up under Admin, then Billing, the button reads Pay and the money goes straight to your own Stripe account. Until then it reads Place order and you take payment when they collect. New orders are listed under Open Orders on Website, and admins are emailed about each one.

The orders board. Ask for an orders dashboard and Diract does not just draw one. It works out what an order involves and builds linked tables for Stores, Menu Items, Orders and Order Items. It adds a Status with your stages in order, a board where dragging a card between columns saves the change, a form to add an order from the screen, and a store filter when you run more than one location.

When the build finishes, Diract tests what it made. It adds a test record, changes it, moves it through each status, archives it and restores it, then undoes all of it so nothing is left behind. You see this happen, and anything that fails is fixed before you are told it is done.

The result is not a mock-up to hand to a developer. It is a working board your kitchen can use that service.

A simple plan to cut your commission bill

1. List your channels and roughly how many orders each brings in each week.
2. Pick a direct option from the comparison above that suits how your customers already order.
3. Build or refresh your website so the menu, wait times and delivery details are clear on a phone.
4. Set up the kitchen board before you promote the new channel, so extra orders do not land on paper.
5. Tell your regulars. Put your website on receipts, bags and the front counter.
6. Review after a month. Compare what you kept on direct orders with what the marketplace charged.

Conclusion

A marketplace will always take its cut. A restaurant website with online ordering, backed by a kitchen board your team actually uses, lets you keep the customer and the margin. Start with a clear menu and one direct ordering option, get the back of house organised, then move your regulars across.

Build your app free at diract.io.

Frequently asked questions

Can I take online orders without paying commission?

Yes. Take orders through your own website's checkout or a direct ordering provider linked from it, or offer order ahead and pay at pick up. You pay card processing fees or a subscription instead of a percentage of every order.

Does Diract take a cut of payments?

No. Card payments for website orders and invoices go straight to your own Stripe account, and Diract takes no cut. Stripe charges its own card fees.

Should I stop using delivery apps altogether?

Not usually. Keep them for reaching new customers, and move your regulars to your own website, where each order costs you less.