Restaurant Theme for Ghost: Put Your Menu Online, Take Bookings and Add a Map

The Restaurant theme is an Ectobuilder theme for restaurants, cafés and bistros running their site on Ghost. It opens with a full-width photo and a Book a table button, then shows dishes from the kitchen, your menu with prices, the dining room, guest reviews and a map with your opening hours.

This guide walks through what most restaurants set up first:

• Put your menu online, with prices and dietary labels.
• Take table bookings from every Book a table button.
• Add your address and opening hours, with a map.
• Send a kitchen newsletter with new menus and events.

To follow along, open the theme from the Ectobuilder theme gallery and connect your Ghost site under Settings → Integrations → Ghost Admin API.

Want this theme for your site? Open the Restaurant theme in Ectobuilder and make it yours. Starting is free, and you only pay if you’re happy with the design.

Start with the Restaurant theme

Part 1: Put your menu online

The homepage has two menu sections: From the wood oven this week, three dishes with photos, and the dinner menu, with starters and mains in two columns. Both are part of the theme, so you edit them right on the page in Ectobuilder.

Step 1: Change the dishes

1. Double-click a dish name, price or description to type over it.
2. Click a photo, then Replace in the Image panel on the right to upload your own. Square or landscape photos taken from above work best.
3. Fill in the photo's Description too, or click the sparkle button to have it written for you. It helps search engines show your dishes in image results.

Step 2: Edit the full menu

The dinner menu works the same way. To add a dish, click an existing one and use Items in the panel to duplicate it, then type over the copy. The arrows move it up or down, and the cross removes it.

The small V and GF labels mark vegetarian and gluten-free dishes. Remove them from dishes they don't apply to, and keep the key at the bottom so guests know what they mean.

When the menu changes

Edit the dishes and click Deploy. It takes a minute, so it's fine for a weekly or seasonal menu. If your menu changes every night, write it as a Ghost post instead, for example Tonight's menu, and link the See the full menu button to it.

Part 2: Take table bookings

The Book a table buttons in the header and on the hero photo do nothing until you add your booking page.

Step 1: Get a booking page

Use the booking tool you already have, such as OpenTable, Resy, Tock or SevenRooms, or a simple Calendly page if you only take a few bookings a night. Copy the address of your booking page.

Step 2: Add it in Ectobuilder

Open Settings → Integrations → Booking page and paste the address.

Every Book a table button in the theme already links to #booking, so they all open your booking page at once. Calendly, Cal.com, Google Calendar, TidyCal and Acuity open in a window over your site; services that don't allow that open in a new tab. To point any other button at it, select it and set its link to #booking.

Step 3: Deploy

Click Deploy and try the button on your live site, on a phone too: most bookings come from phones.

To get bookings straight from Google Search and Maps as well, read How to add online booking to your Ghost site.

Part 3: Add your address and opening hours

The Find us section at the bottom shows a map with a card on top: your address, opening hours and a Get directions button.

1. Click the map. Under Map in the panel, type your address in Address. Anything Google Maps can find works, including your restaurant's name.
2. Double-click the address and hours on the card to type yours.
3. Click Get directions and set its link to your restaurant on Google Maps, so guests' phones open their maps app.

Keep the hours on the card in the same words as on your Google Business profile. Guests notice when they don't match.

Part 4: Send a kitchen newsletter

The footer asks guests to Get the kitchen letter. Each address they type becomes a member of your Ghost site, so you can email them from Ghost when the menu changes or you run a special night.

1. In Ghost Admin, open Settings → Newsletters and give your newsletter a name and a sender.
2. To send, write a post and choose Publish and email. Use Email only for news that shouldn't stay on your site, like a one-off chef's table night.

A short letter once a month works better than weekly news. New menus, seasonal dishes and events are what guests open.

Ready to build yours? Everything in this guide works on your own copy of the Restaurant theme. Start free, connect your Ghost site when you’re ready, and only pay if you like the result.

Start free

Next steps

• Replace the dining-room photos with your own. To let guests open them full size, set Click to enlarge to All under Settings → Features (more in the lightbox guide).
• Change the colors and fonts under Style. They apply to every page at once.
• Replace the sample reviews with real ones from Google or your guest book.
• Use the blog (Journal in the menu) for menu changes, new staff and producer stories. They help people find you in search.