Does a café need a website if it has Google Maps and Instagram?

Cupán Studio sells café websites. We build them for Dublin cafés and send the owner a finished preview, so we have a stake in the answer.

No, a café does not strictly need one. Google Maps and Instagram cover a lot. What a website adds is one place the café controls, with the menu and prices as text that anyone can read without an account. In our view that is worth having, but only if it is kept up to date, because a stale site is worse than none. People in one 2023 Reddit thread disagreed on whether a café needs one, and I give both sides below.

Where the question came from

A poster asked it in r/web_design on 7 June 2023. They said Google Maps does a decent job of gathering a restaurant's content, that marketplace platforms feature menus and photos, and that some places use only Instagram, so what is the "value prop" of a website? The thread is American (Resy, Yelp and DoorDash are named). In Ireland the nearer delivery equivalents are Deliveroo and Just Eat.

What does a website do that Google Maps does not?

It gives you one place you control. One commenter listed what they want from a restaurant: an online menu with prices, photos of the inside, and a way to book or contact it. They said Google Maps often lacks much of it. They wrote "Google maps doesn't offer half of that most of the time" and "The value of a website is that it's a single, authoritative, central place to gather all that info." The most upvoted comment, from a former chef, said "The most important thing people look for is accurate menus with prices." The same commenter added "Please don't make me download a menu on my phone."

Another commenter, who has a degenerative retinal condition, wrote "An accurate website is an incredible experience for me." On PDF menus they wrote "Folks very rarely get the accessibility right to begin with." Those are single comments, not research. Several commenters asked for the same things: the menu with prices as text, hours and location, readable on a phone.

Not everyone agreed that the website wins. One commenter in Spain had "the opposite experience. Google provides the real info, the website provides the info from 5 years ago". In our view, if your Google listing is right and your site is not, the site does harm.

Is an Instagram page enough instead of a website?

It can be, for some customers, but several commenters said it leaves some people out. One said that if you do not have an account on Facebook or Instagram "you might not be able to access that". Another commenter said "tons of people" who do have social media accounts would not dream of using Instagram or TikTok to check whether a place is closed today or what a dish costs, because that is text information. A third commenter said a photo of a menu on Instagram is "useless for blind people", some people with dyslexia, and people without an account.

Instagram also has to be kept up. One commenter said "99% of the time you go to a restaurant social media and they haven't posted for 2 years". That is one person's experience, not a count. Another replied that bad or old data is worse than none.

When is a café fine without a website?

When it cannot keep one up to date, or when its customers already find it another way. The same third commenter said that if they had a small diner serving a small local area, they "probably would be better without a website, unless I can do it myself", because a site "demands time and money" and needs "regular content updates". For a nice middle or high end restaurant, they wrote, "I'd prefer to promote my brand on my own terms with my own website." They added that "Each business can decide for themselves." They also wrote "it's not 'Some platform vs Own Website'." The real question, they said, is "Would it be beneficial to have own website in addition to other platforms?" I agree with that framing.

A different commenter said a business that lives on returning local customers might not find a site worth it, while for one that depends on new business from out of town "a website is essential". If you do go without, keep your Google listing right: hours, menu and phone number. Our longer guide asks does my café need a website.

Do small businesses need a website?

Not strictly, and it is a fair choice to make either way. Most of the 77 Dublin cafés we looked at point their Google listing at something other than a site of their own. On 20 September 2026 I read the Google listings of 77 independent Dublin cafés, roasters and carts (a hand-built list, heavy on the city centre, not a census). The website field held nothing for 35, an Instagram profile for 15, a Facebook page for 12, and the shop's own site for 15. In our view a small site with the menu, prices and hours as text, kept current, is what adds something the other places do not. The count of 77 cafés has the method and its limits.

Sources

• r/web_design, "Should restaurants/cafes have websites?", 7 June 2023, read 9 October 2026.
• Cupán Studio, Dublin café websites 2026, read 9 October 2026.

This is a summary of one forum thread and one hand-built count, not advice for your shop. Cupán Studio builds websites for Dublin cafés.