Cafe customers decide standing on a footpath. ‘Are you open’ is the whole search, followed by ‘do you do food or just coffee’, ‘is there somewhere to sit’ and ‘can we bring the dog’. They are looking at your Google card, not your website, and the card is only as good as what sits behind it. Websites for cafes in Dublin do their best work quietly: feeding Google the right hours, a menu that can be read on a phone, and the handful of facts that decide whether someone walks in or walks on.
We keep the site and the Google listing right so the person on the footpath gets the right answer, and you keep the coffee coming.
‘Are you open?’ is the whole search
The most expensive mistake a cafe makes online is hours that are wrong. Closed Monday but Google says open. Open until three but Google says five, so a couple arrive at half four to find the chairs on the tables. Bank holiday Mondays, Christmas week, the fortnight you close in January: each one is a chance for Google to tell people something untrue. The listing and the site share one set of hours, you change them from your phone, and both update. It is dull, and it is the single thing that brings the most people through the door.
The menu is not a photo on Instagram
A menu posted as a photo to Instagram three months ago, with prices crossed out, is what most cafes have. It cannot be read by Google, by someone who does not have the app, or by a screen reader. The menu goes on the site as text: breakfast until when, brunch all day or not, the sandwiches, the soup, the cakes, the coffee and the alternative milks, each with a price. When your supplier puts up the price of beans and you add twenty cent to a flat white, you change it on the edit page and it is live before the next customer.
If you post the daily specials board on Instagram, keep doing it. The site links to your grid, and what Instagram cannot do for a cafe explains why the two work together rather than against each other.
Small facts that fill tables
Dog friendly. Buggies fit. Laptops welcome weekday afternoons, not weekend brunch. Outdoor seating, how many tables, under cover or not. Oat milk, decaf, gluten-free bread. Card and Apple Pay. Takeaway cups and whether you knock a bit off for a keep-cup. Toilets. A high chair. Nearest parking or the Luas stop. None of these are glamorous and each one is a reason someone chooses you over the place across the road. They go on the page in plain words and into the Google listing’s attributes, and the AI assistants people now ask ‘where can we work on our laptop in Phibsborough’ can read them from the same place.
Bank holidays, Christmas and the specials board
A cafe’s year is marked by closures and crowds rather than seasons. The June and August bank holidays, when the suburbs empty. Christmas week, when you are either heaving or shut. January, when you might close for a fortnight and paint. Local events, a match at the stadium or a market on the green, that double your Saturday. A line on the site and a post on the Google listing before each one costs you a minute and saves you the apologies.
Catering orders and vouchers
Offices nearby want trays of sandwiches and a box of coffee on a Thursday morning. Parents want a birthday cake ordered. A simple catering page with what you offer, how much notice you need and how to order, with the enquiry landing on your WhatsApp, turns a vague ‘do you do catering’ into orders. Gift vouchers, if you sell them, are a Complete feature: bought on the site, money to your account, redeemed at the counter.
What we need from the cafe
Your menu with prices, your hours for every day including the bank holiday pattern, eight to ten photos (the room, the counter, the coffee, three plates, the outside with the sign), the roaster you use if you want it named, your dog and laptop and buggy rules, and the Eircode. Most cafe sites are live within a few days. Several of the warning signs in signs your website is costing you customers are cafe problems, so it is worth a scroll before we talk.
What it costs
Essentials is €499 to set up and €50 a month and does what most cafes need. Complete at €1,499 and €100 a month adds vouchers, catering deposits, the review text and the managed Google listing. The pricing page shows them side by side. If you are more bakery than cafe, the bakeries page covers pre-orders and Christmas week.