Hospitality · Websites

Websites for hospitality businesses

Open tonight? What's on? Is the back room free on Saturday? People check your website for three things. Arête builds venue sites that answer all three in one tap, then take them straight to a direct booking or a functions enquiry.

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From £1,800 per project

The situation

Why your customers are searching.

Plenty of pub, bar and café websites get built once and left. Then it slips. The events page goes stale, the hours drift away from Google and the private-hire details end up in a PDF. Anyone organising a birthday, a wake or a work do will shortlist two or three venues. The one that shows capacities, food options and an easy enquiry form is the one most likely to hear first. Your website should be the most accurate, complete version of your venue online.

What sends them looking

Midweek trade is flat, and your fixed costs aren't.
The function room, garden or upstairs space sits empty on nights it could be earning.
Delivery and booking platform commission has become a line in the accounts you notice every month.
You're launching live music, a quiz or a supper club, and it needs a crowd from week one.
The season's turning, and you want tourists, students or summer crowds to know about you before they arrive.

The problem

What costs hospitality businesses work.

Where the work slips away

When hours, kitchen times and event dates differ between your website, Google and social pages, you lose trust and footfall.
Private-hire enquiries come in by phone, DM and email with no standard form, so details go missing and follow-ups slip.
A quiz, a gig or a big match needs a few days of promotion to people nearby. One post on the day gets lost.
Your audience shifts through the year, from locals to tourists to Christmas bookers, and the marketing has to shift with it.
Delivery apps and booking platforms bring visibility, then take a cut of every order and keep hold of the customer relationship.

What makes customers hesitate

Regulars and word of mouth have always kept the place going. Why pay for marketing now?
Someone already posts on Instagram, so what would ads or a new website add?
Boosted posts brought likes before, but nobody could say whether they put anyone through the door.
Running a venue leaves little time for sending photos, event details and sign-offs.

How it helps

What a better website changes.

Hours, kitchen times, events and directions sit at the top of the screen on a phone, where people look first.
Private hire gets its own pages, with capacities, layouts, packages and an enquiry form that asks the right questions.
Your staff update the events calendar themselves. No developer, no waiting.
Direct booking and ticketing let your regulars skip the third-party platforms, and the commission that comes with them.

What you get

Private-hire and functions pages

One page per hireable space: capacities, layouts, photos, food and drink options, plus an enquiry form that captures the date, numbers and occasion up front.

An events calendar staff can update

Quiz nights, live music, sports screenings and seasonal events listed by date. Each one gets its own shareable page, and adding a new one takes minutes.

Menus built as web pages

Food and drink menus as proper web pages. They load fast on a phone, change in minutes and can be read by search engines.

Opening hours that match Google

Opening hours, kitchen times and holiday hours structured on the site and kept in step with your Google Business Profile.

Direct booking and ordering routes

Table, area or ticket booking, plus click-and-collect where it makes sense, set up on your own site or chosen system so repeat customers aren't routed through a platform.

Practical visitor information

Accessibility, dog and family policies, parking, public transport and a map that works for people coming from out of town.

Measurement

The enquiries that count, tracked properly.

What counts as an enquiry

A private-hire enquiry with the date, numbers and occasion already filled in.
A table or area booked straight through your own site.
A ticket or place booked for a quiz, a gig or a ticketed night.
A tap to call, or a request for directions from Google Maps or your website.

What gets tracked

Functions enquiries sent through the website, and how many turn into bookings.
Direct table, area or ticket bookings made on the site.
Taps to call and direction requests from people on their phones.
Traffic to each event page from your social posts and ads.

Worth knowing

What customers check, and the rules to follow.

What customers look for before they call

Honest, recent photos of the space, the bar and the food on an ordinary night.
Capacities, layouts and what's included for private hire, so organisers can see it'll work before they ask.
Up-to-date hours, kitchen times and an events calendar that match what Google shows.
A steady run of recent Google reviews, with replies that show someone's paying attention.
The practical stuff: step-free access, dogs, parking and how to get there.

Rules worth knowing

Any ad featuring alcohol has to follow the CAP Code's alcohol rules, including not appealing to under-18s, and Meta applies age restrictions to alcohol advertising.
Information on the 14 regulated allergens must be available to customers, and for food ordered online for delivery or collection, it has to be available before the order is placed.
Prices you show online should include any compulsory charges, with any discretionary service charge labelled plainly as optional.
If guests can be identified in photos or video, you need their agreement, particularly for paid ads.

Straight answer

Is it right for you?

Yes, if you've got events, private hire or seasonal trade to sell. A walk-in café with steady footfall? Less essential.

Made for

Independent pubs, bars and cafés with events or hireable spaces to promote.
Venues that want more of their bookings and functions enquiries coming direct.
Businesses whose current site is out of date, slow or hard to update.

Not for

Venues that rely entirely on walk-in trade and only need a basic listing.
Pubs tied to a brewery or pub company website they can't change.
Operators with nobody to keep events and hours up to date after launch.

Starting price

From £1,800

per project, fixed scope

What moves the price

Number of pages and page templates
How much copywriting and photography support is needed
A content management system or blog
Booking systems, integrations or multilingual structure
Custom animation and interaction

See all starting prices

Questions

Websites for hospitality businesses: your questions answered

Can staff update events and opening hours themselves?

Yes. Events, hours and menus change through a simple editor with no technical knowledge needed, and a short handover shows staff how to add an event or change holiday hours. That matters. Out-of-date information is one of the quickest ways to lose a customer's trust.

Can a venue website take bookings without a platform charging per booking?

In many cases. Bookings can run through a flat-fee system, a structured enquiry form or a direct ticketing tool instead of a commission-based platform. Which one suits you depends on how many bookings you take and whether you need table or area management.