How to add online ordering to a WordPress restaurant site
Third-party delivery platforms often hide fees and take ownership of your website, meaning you lose your site and SEO if you ever leave. To keep control and avoid these costs, many restaurants either stick to phone orders or look for independent WordPress plugins to handle orders directly.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- People have been saying this in most months since September 2026.
- This comes up 182.8× more often in r/restaurantowners than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
How to add online ordering to a WordPress restaurant site
- 1Using external platforms like Toast and integrating them into the siteDid this help you?
- 2Using alternative third-party services like RiaRai Order alongside a WordPress siteDid this help you?
- 3Taking takeout orders exclusively by phone to avoid the complexities of online modifications and allergies.Did this help you?
- 4Hiring an independent agency or contract developer to build a custom website so the business retains full ownership of the domain and SEO.Did this help you?
- 5Sticking to a basic POS-provided website paired with flat-fee delivery services rather than migrating to an expensive managed platform.Did this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“all those delivery companies slowly kill the restaurant. it's detrimental and so many different ways and aspects. we did take out orders way before covid and still do take outs the same way. the customer orders directly through us and comes and picks it up. and it's phone call only.”source ↗
“They charge you someone like 5% and say they’re NOT charging you because “the customer will pay it”. Wasted SO MUCH of my time. I was ready to sign up and they slipped that in there like it was no big deal, after several phone calls. Still mad about it.”source ↗
“I would never ever sign up for something like this because most likely if you ever leave their platform you will lose your website with them. You get a license to use the website and content they create but they own it. That means everything related to your website and SEO they did for you will be lost. I've migrated companies off these platforms (not Owner) before and it really sucks.”source ↗
“I run a restaurant and want to add online ordering to my WordPress site. Which plugin would you recommend, and why?”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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- 2How to source non-print-on-demand inventory for an online store
- 2Why does setting up ChatGPT ads on Shopify give a crawl failed error?
- 2Should I open another restaurant after failing?
- 8How to set up automated payment processing for a small business