Restaurants are among the most frequently targeted businesses in website accessibility claims, and the reason is simple: almost every restaurant site has a menu, an ordering link and a reservation widget, and those three things are where accessibility usually breaks.
The PDF menu problem
A menu saved as a scanned image or an untagged PDF is invisible to a screen reader. A guest who is blind cannot read your prices, your specials or your allergen notes. This is one of the most common complaints in restaurant accessibility claims, and it is also one of the easiest to fix: publish your menu as ordinary text on a web page. It is better for search engines too, because Google can read a text menu and show your dishes in search results.
Ordering and reservation widgets you did not build
Most restaurants embed a third-party ordering or booking tool. You are still the business the guest is dealing with, so the accessibility of that flow matters to you. We check whether the widget can be operated with a keyboard, whether it announces errors, and whether there is an accessible alternative such as a phone number that is easy to find. If the vendor tool is the barrier, you need to know that before someone else points it out.
What else we look at on restaurant sites
- Food photography with no text alternative, so the story of the dish is lost.
- Dark, moody designs where text contrast falls below readable levels.
- Background video that plays automatically and cannot be paused.
- Hours, address and phone locked inside an image instead of real text.
- Gift card and catering forms with unlabeled fields.
- Pop-ups for newsletters or reservations that a keyboard user cannot close.
Why this is worth doing beyond the legal side
Roughly one in four US adults reports a disability, and many more have age-related vision or dexterity changes. A guest who cannot read your menu orders somewhere else, and they usually do not tell you why. An accessible site is also a faster, cleaner, better-indexed site, which helps when someone nearby searches for dinner.
How we work with restaurant owners
We scan the site, install and configure accessibility tooling, publish an accessibility statement with a way for guests to report a problem, convert PDF menus into accessible pages where that is the issue, and keep monitoring as you change specials and seasonal pages. We are honest about the limits: automated tooling handles a meaningful share of common barriers, not all of them, and we will tell you plainly what still needs a human.
Start with a free scan. Enter your domain on our free website accessibility scan page and see where your restaurant site stands today. Then call 1-866-677-4443 or send a message and we will go through the results with you. Plans start at $79 per month, most sites are set up within 24 hours, and there is a 7-day free trial.