Build a restaurant site on SGEN in 30 minutes

In short. This tutorial takes you from a fresh SGEN account to a published preview site with a home page, a menu organized into sections (Starters, Mains, Desserts, Drinks), a reservation form, an embedded location map, a photo gallery, and the LocalBusiness schema that gets a restaurant found in local search. Every decision is pre-made on the first pass — swap in real content once the shape works. That's the whole thing — read on for step-by-step depth.

On this page: Before you start · Steps 1-8 · What success looks like · Troubleshooting · Sample data · Variations

Before you start

You need: an SGEN account (5-minute quickstart if you don't have one) · about 30 minutes · a current browser. Helpful but not required: a text file with menu items pre-written — it saves 5-10 minutes of typing in the editor.

You do not need a custom domain, a professional logo, a reservations-system account, or a credit card.

Good fits for this tutorial: independent restaurants, small chains (2-5 locations), agencies scoping a restaurant build, operators who want to update their own menu without developer help.

Not covered here: third-party reservation system embeds (OpenTable, Resy, Tock), online ordering, per-location franchise structure, or age-gate compliance. Each of those is a separate engagement.

Where to find it

Steps

Eight steps. Each names a target time and a success signal. If a step runs long, accept the sample data and move on — polish happens on the second pass.

1. Pick the Restaurant Starter template (≤ 2 minutes)

Sign in to SG-Dashboard. Click Create Site. Pick Restaurant Starter — it ships with a Home page, Menu page, Reservations page, About page, Photo Gallery, Contact page, and a footer wired with hours, address, and social links.

Name the site, accept the suggested preview subdomain, and click Create Site. SGEN provisions in 3-5 seconds and redirects you into the admin.

Success signal: SG-Admin is loaded, every starter page shows Draft status, and the sample data is visible in each page.

2. Customize the Home hero and footer hours (≤ 4 minutes)

Click Pages → Home. The page opens in SG-Builder. Replace the headline with your restaurant's name and the subhead with a one-liner ("Neighborhood Italian, since 2019").

Scroll to the Hours block. Edit each row to match your actual hours — the block accepts "11:00 AM - 10:00 PM" or "Closed". Scroll to the footer and fill in address, phone, email, and social links — these appear on every page.

Click Publish.

Success signal: Home is Published with the customized hero, populated hours, and your contact info in the footer.

3. Build the Menu page (≤ 8 minutes)

Open Pages → Menu. The Starter ships four sections: Starters, Mains, Desserts, and Drinks. Each item has a name, one-line description, price, and optional dietary tags.

Click any item to edit it inline. Add items with + Add Item; drag items between sections. Dietary tags (Vegetarian, Vegan, Gluten-Free, Spicy) toggle on or off per item. Aim for 3-5 items per section on the first pass — paste from a prepared text file if you have one.

Success signal: Menu page shows four sections with 3-5 items each, prices consistent, dietary tags applied. Page is Published.

4. Wire the Reservations form (≤ 4 minutes)

Open Pages → Reservations. Click the form, then Settings. Confirm:

• Recipient email — a real inbox that gets checked.
• Date field range — minimum "today," maximum "60 days from today."
• Available time slots — 30-minute increments matching your seating windows.
• Party size range — 1 to your largest table (commonly 8).

Save. Submit a test submission (after step 8) to confirm the email lands in the recipient inbox.

Success signal: Reservations page shows the form with your configured fields and settings saved.

5. Add the location map and contact info (≤ 3 minutes)

Open Pages → Contact. Set the address to your real restaurant address — the Map Block auto-centers on it. Confirm the phone number is formatted as a standard number ("+1 555-123-4567") so SGEN auto-wraps it in a clickable mobile link.

Click Publish.

Success signal: Contact page shows the map on your address, a clickable phone link, and the social links from the site-wide footer.

6. Populate the Photo Gallery (≤ 4 minutes)

Open Pages → Gallery. Click each placeholder and Replace with your own photos — or upload a batch via Modules → Media and drag them into the gallery slots. Six to eight images is enough for a first pass: the dish, the interior, the bar, the staff, the front, and a hero shot.

If you don't have professional photos yet, the sample shots are usable for a soft launch. Mark the gallery as Hidden from main navigation in the page settings if you want to keep it off the menu until real photos are ready.

Click Publish.

Success signal: Gallery shows your photos in a responsive grid; tapping a photo opens a lightbox with prev/next navigation.

7. Set the SEO basics including LocalBusiness schema (≤ 3 minutes)

Open Settings → SEO. Fill in:

• Site title: "[Restaurant Name] — [Cuisine] restaurant in [neighborhood]"
• Meta description: one sentence, 150 characters or less.
• Open Graph image: upload a 1200×630 hero shot — what shows when your URL is shared on social.

Then open Settings → Structured Data and enable LocalBusiness schema. SGEN auto-generates the JSON-LD from your contact info, hours, and address. Click Preview — you should see your name, address, phone, hours, and price range. If any field is empty, return to its source page (Home for hours, Contact for address) and fill it in.

Confirm the sitemap is enabled (Settings → SEO → Sitemap) and reachable at https://.sgen.com/sitemap.xml.

Success signal: SEO settings show your title, description, and OG image. LocalBusiness schema preview shows real data. Sitemap is reachable.

8. Publish everything and view the live site (≤ 2 minutes)

Walk through the Pages list. Confirm every page shows the green Published badge: Home · Menu · Reservations · About · Gallery · Contact.

Click View Site. Walk through the live site and confirm:

• Home hero displays correctly on mobile.
• Hours block matches step 2.
• Menu sections render with prices, descriptions, and dietary tags.
• Reservation form submits — fill it in with your own email and confirm the message arrives.
• Map centers on your address.
• Gallery loads and the lightbox works.

Success signal: a fully working restaurant site at https://.sgen.com, ready for a soft launch. Total elapsed time from step 1: about 30 minutes.

What success looks like

You finish with:

• A published *.sgen.com restaurant site.
• Home page with custom hero, populated hours, and the right footer info.
• Menu page with four sections, 3-5 items each, dietary tags applied.
• Reservations form delivering to a real inbox.
• Contact page with embedded map and clickable phone link.
• Six-to-eight image Photo Gallery in a responsive lightbox grid.
• LocalBusiness structured data live, sitemap reachable, and OG image set.

Fuller check:

• The Menu page is scrollable on mobile with section-anchor links at the top.
• The Google "Test for Rich Results" tool reports valid LocalBusiness schema when you paste the live URL.
• The preview URL, pasted into a social post, shows the OG image and meta description you configured.

What to do if it does not work

Reservation form submits but no email arrives. Confirm the Recipient email field is set (Reservations → Form → Settings). Check Modules → Forms → Submissions — the entry is there even if email failed. Forward manually until the inbox setting is corrected.

Map shows a generic placeholder instead of the restaurant location. The Maps module is plan-gated on starter tiers. The static placeholder is the fallback; it still includes a "Get directions" link. Upgrade the plan to unlock the interactive map.

LocalBusiness schema preview shows missing fields. Each field maps to a source page: address pulls from Contact, hours pull from the Hours block on Home, phone pulls from the site-wide footer. Return to the source page, fill in the empty field, save, then re-open the Structured Data preview.

Menu item price renders with no currency symbol. Confirm Settings → Locale → Currency is set correctly. The Menu Builder formats per locale — whole dollars need no decimal; cents use dot decimal ("12.50").

Dietary tags don't show on a menu item. Tags are per-item, not per-section. Click the item, toggle the tag icons in the inline editor, save the section, then hard-reload the live page.

Sample data used in this tutorial

Menu — Starters (sample)

Menu — Mains (sample)

Hours (sample)

Reservation form fields: Name, email, phone, party size (1-8), date (today through +60 days), time (30-min increments), special requests (optional).

Gallery (sample): dining room, bar, hero dish, exterior, kitchen action, plated dessert.

Variations

Once the basic shape works:

• Add OpenTable, Resy, or Tock embeds. Replace the SGEN Reservations form with the provider's iframe snippet on the Reservations page.
• Add a Wine List page. Duplicate the Menu page, rename to "Wine List," and restructure into Reds, Whites, Sparkling, and By-the-Glass sections.
• Add a Private Events page. A landing page with a contact form routed to a different inbox than standard reservations.
• Add a multi-location structure. For 2-5 locations, use SG-Dashboard to create a parent site (chain-wide) and child sites (per location). Full detail: Build a local-services site on SGEN in 30 minutes.
• Add email capture. The Forms module supports a simple email-only capture in the footer, with submissions logged in SGEN.
• Add seasonal menus. Create Menu page variants (Spring Menu, Summer Menu) and use the Schedule field to swap visibility by date.

Common pitfalls

Writing menu copy in the SGEN editor instead of pasting. Open a text file before you start with every item listed (name, description, price). Copy-paste row by row. Build time drops from 40 minutes to 10.

Uploading low-resolution gallery photos. The gallery lightbox displays at 1600×1200. Upload at 2000×1500 or larger — SGEN serves the right size per device. Modern phone cameras clear that threshold by default.

Forgetting to fill the LocalBusiness schema fields. If any field is empty, the schema is incomplete and the Google knowledge panel may not appear. Always run the Structured Data preview in step 7.

Setting the reservation date range too narrow or too wide. Default is today through +60 days. Match it to how far in advance your front-of-house accepts reservations.

Related reading

• SGEN quickstart: deploy your first site in 5 minutes — run this first if you don't yet have an account.
• Build a local-services site on SGEN in 30 minutes — adjacent tutorial covering service areas, booking form, and quote requests.
• Build an ecommerce site on SGEN in 30 minutes — adjacent tutorial covering products, cart, and order management.
• Build an event site on SGEN in 30 minutes — adjacent tutorial covering RSVP flow, schedule grids, and venue maps.
• Build an agency portfolio site on SGEN in 30 minutes — same shape, tuned for agencies.