In this post I’ll show you a quick and easy way to create a cafe or restaurant website using Square.1
What is Square?
Square1 transacts credit/debit card payments wirelessly using their bluetooth device and smart phone app. What many don’t know is they also provide you a free website builder with your account and it’s pretty good. This free website builder includes features specifically for food service businesses.
Whilst there are plenty of website builders out there, this one includes your merchant account. Once you have set up your Square1 account, you can transact your customers credit/debit cards using your own e-commerce website. All you need is a Square account. Your website is included in your account and if you follow the info on this page you can build it for free!
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Watch this video for a quick intro
This video is 3m 28 seconds.
Please Note
The information on this page does not explain how to set up your Square account. You will need to buy the device from JB HiFi, Officeworks or Bunnings, then link up your bank account and come back and follow these steps to build your website. The process to create a new square account can take up to 4 days to verify your bank and link your account.
Take a tour of the finished website
This video is 7 minutes
let’s look at the Pros and Cons of the free version of square
Whenever I see the word free on a product, I always look for the catch and that’s why I wanted to show you up front what I had found before you build your web page. You can then make well-informed decision before putting your valuable time into building this.
This video is 13.23 minutes
Pros and Cons Summary
One of the cons I did not mention in this video, is designing the look of your store. Whilst it looks professional and clean, the free version doesn’t give you many options when it comes to colours etc. But, if you are after a professional looking site that caters for food services, is easy to put together and easy for you customer to order from, then I think Square is a winner.
Once you set up your Square account you are ready to build your site
Once you have your device and you’ve setup your Square account, you are ready to build your website.
Let’s Get started Building YouR Food Ordering Page
1. Login to your square account,
Square’s website, squareup.com
Once logged in, click the Online Store menu item, bottom left.
2. Click The Blue Get Started Button
3. How do you plan to FULFILL orders?
Choose allow inshore pickup and click continue. This is the best option for a food services business, unless you are shipping food over a greater distance.
4. Choose The Single Ordering Page option and click continue.
You can add additional pages later.
Add food items and categories for your menus
This video is 15.57 minutes
Finding and resizing images for your food ordering website.
This video is 10.37 minutes
Square General Settings
This video is 9.43 minutes
Design and publish your Food Ordering Web page
This video is 24.05 minutes
References used in this post
- Square, https://squareup.com/au/en
- Video, Finding and Resizing Images, Free Stock Images, https://www.pxfuel.com/
- Video, Finding and Resizing Images, Free Stock Images, https://unsplash.com/
- Video, Take a Tour of The Finished Website, https://cafe-nambucca.square.site/
More Help on the way
I’ll be putting together another post shortly with ideas on how to promote your new food ordering web page for your cafe or restaurant. Even if you don’t use the product or method described in this post you may get something out of this new post I’m working on.
If you get stuck and need some help just send me a message by email or use the form on the contact page.
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