You run a cafe. You have an Instagram page that does fine, a Google listing you set up once, and roughly zero spare hours. Someone — possibly us — is suggesting you need a website too. Do you?
Short version: probably yes, but for one specific reason, and it's not the reason web designers usually give. Let's do this properly.
What you actually need online (the full list is short)
A cafe needs exactly three things online. First, to appear when nearby people search. Around 94% of customers look a place up before visiting, and over half of cafe discovery happens through "near me"-style searches. This is the whole game. Second, to answer the three questions: what do you serve, when are you open, where are you. Every visit starts with these. Third, to look like somewhere worth walking to. Photos do this. That's it. Nothing about blogs, newsletters, or "engaging content".
What Instagram does brilliantly — and where it stops
Instagram is genuinely great at the third job. It keeps regulars warm, shows off the food, and gives your cafe a personality. Keep it. Post more, even.
But it fails the first two jobs, structurally. Google can barely read Instagram — your menu is in image captions and highlights, your hours are in a pinned comment from March, and none of it feeds the search results where new customers are deciding. An Instagram-only cafe is effectively invisible to anyone who doesn't already follow it. Twenty-one percent of small businesses without websites say social media does the job instead — and for reaching new local customers, they're measurably wrong.
There's a second, quieter problem: you don't own it. An algorithm change, a hacked account, or a platform decline (ask anyone who built on Facebook pages) takes your online presence with it.
"But I have a Google Business Profile"
Good — it's arguably more important than a website, and if you don't have one, set it up today, free. Google profiles get seven times more views than restaurant websites. So why not stop there?
Because a profile works dramatically better with a site behind it. Google cross-checks: a profile that links to a real website with matching menu, hours and address earns more trust — and better placement — than a floating profile alone. The website is also where the profile's "Menu" and "Website" buttons have to point. No site, and those taps dead-end at your Instagram, where the menu is a photo from last summer. Profile and website aren't rivals; they're a pair. The profile gets you seen, the site closes the deal.
The honest case against a website
You can skip a website if you're at capacity from foot traffic alone with no interest in growing; you're a stall or pop-up whose location is the whole story (though see food trucks — schedules change that); or you're closing within the year. And if a designer quotes you £2,000 for a ten-page cafe site with a blog: the correct answer is no. Cafes don't need that website at any price, which brings us to —
What a cafe website should actually be
One page. Menu, hours, map, photos, phone number, your Instagram embedded. Fast enough to load before the person at the bus stop loses interest. That's the entire spec — anything more is for the designer's portfolio, not your till. (Full breakdown: what a cafe website should include.)
One page done properly costs very little — here's what you should pay in 2026 — and takes almost none of your time to keep, if someone else maintains it.
The verdict
If new customers matter to you at all: yes, you need one — a small, fast, one-page site that feeds Google and backs up your profile, alongside the Instagram you already run. Whether you run a neighbourhood cafe, a specialty coffee shop, a bakery, or a brunch spot, the shape is the same. What you don't need is a big site, a big bill, or a new hobby maintaining it.
See yours before you decide anything
Want to see yours before deciding anything? Send one photo and your Instagram link — we'll build a free mockup of your cafe's website in 48 hours. No commitment, no sales calls.