Although it might seem like a piece of cake, designing a restaurant website is not that easy nor quick.
Luckily, the good people of WordPress community decided to give you a hand by creating themes that will help you promote your restaurant/café/bar and light up your brand. So, shortly put, to build a restaurant website, all you need to do is find a restaurant WordPress theme (may we suggest Aperitive? Or check the other restaurant WordPress themes we offer) and customize it, by changing colors, fonts, etc. to get the look you want.
However, when you get to choosing colors for your site, that’s when problems come to life.
Customizing a restaurant theme means that you have to “translate” your business’ concept and branding into the digital sphere, which, obviously, requires careful planning. After all, a website’s colors influence how site visitors interpret site’s layout 一 they value your restaurant’s brand based on the overall aesthetics and feel of the website. It does take users 0,05 seconds to form an opinion about a website.
Now, imagine that the interior and the logo of your restaurant is a mixture of dark purple, like indigo (#4B0082) and bright, vibrant yellow (like #FAF206). The question you need to answer is whether you should use the exact colors on your website, or whether you should adjust them a bit, without losing your brand’s identity.
If you are not sure what the answer is, allow us to help you.
In the following text, we wrote down the best website color schemes for restaurant websites and mentioned a couple of tips that can help you choose the right color palette if you don’t have one already.
So… Fire (as chefs would say)!
How to choose the right website color schemes for your restaurant website
When choosing colors for your restaurant website, the first thing you need to do is to pay attention to the colors of your restaurant’s interior and logo. So, for example, if you run an exclusive restaurant, like the Le Bernardin in New York City, and your restaurant’s interior is enriched with the orangey gold and black details, you definitely want to use both of these colors on the website. The only trick is how you are going to combine them, and whether you are going to add more colors or not.
If you are just starting your business, and have no clue what your restaurant/food truck/bar will look like, you won’t be disappointed in reading the rest of the text.
Here are the steps that will guide you through the process of choosing the right color palette for your restaurant site:
1. Decide how many colors you want to include on the site
Before you get to choosing colors, you need to decide how many colors you want on-site.
When it comes to this matter, there is no universal advice we can give you. The number of colors depends on the complexity of the site’s design and color combinations. If we had to mention a number, let it be three 一 a primary, a secondary, and a background color. You can work your way up if you feel like you need to, but don’t choose more than five colors.
Bonus tip: When thinking about the best website color schemes for restaurant websites, do a bit of research on color psychology. As you might know, colors tend to affect site users’ perception on a subconscious level, affecting even their behavior and how they navigate the website. For example, red color, being so intense and powerful, has a tendency to increase the heartbeat and stimulates the appetite (which is why it is commonly used in the food industry). On the contrary, the color blue has a calming effect, especially if we are talking about the lighter shades of blue. If you are not sure how colors impact viewers’ thoughts, be sure to read a post on Oberlo.com.
Super bonus tip: If you are overwhelmed by the color combinations you came across, you can check out 2019 trending website color schemes for all kinds of websites. Who knows, maybe you’ll find inspiration there.
2. Choose a primary color, the color your website will be associated with
What is the color of your logo? Or the dominant colors of your restaurant’s interior? Black, brown, deep green? Great, you already have a primary color!
(If you are, however, in the process of building your restaurant’s interior design, and you can’t seem to choose the color you like the best, do a bit of research on your competitors and see what color schemes they included on their sites. If you use Google Chrome for such investigation, don’t skip using the Eye Dropper extension, a tool that allows you to pick colors from web pages, and mark them down.)
So, where should you use this color? Use it anywhere you want to attract viewers’ attention, like the logo, Menu tabs, titles in the Menu, headlines, in the “book a table” form, etc. The primary, dominant color should highlight the places that you want site visitors to focus on.
3. Choose a secondary color
A secondary color is the one that complements the primary one and makes the website design a bit more interesting and eye-catching. Using this color, you want to emphasize part of the website, like button and subtitles. It goes without saying that a secondary color should be well mixed, matched, and blended with the primary one.
Now, choosing a secondary color is much more difficult than picking the dominant one, because, again, you want it to go well with the primary color you chose. To help you determine which shade you should use, be sure to check the Adobe Color tool. Using this tool will show you which colors go well together, based on different color theories. It’s so effortless!
4. Choose a background color
Background color is the overall color of your website. When it comes to picking this shade, you want to find a balance between “it’s too boring to look at”, and “the color is so overwhelming, I can’t stay on this site for more than 2 minutes”. You need to find a color that will make site visitors feel comfortable going through your site and will go hand in hand with the primary and secondary shades.
When it comes to choosing this color, keep in mind the purpose of your site and the design of your restaurant. For example, if you run a vegan, environmentally-friendly restaurant built for Millennials, your primary and secondary colors can be shades of green, while the background can be completely white.
Best website color schemes for restaurant websites
In the end, let’s talk best website color schemes for restaurant websites. If you are entirely in the dark when it comes to deciding on a color palette, allow us to give you some good examples and suggestions of color schemes that worked well for restaurant businesses. Here they are:
1. Browns and greys
Some restaurant websites tend to stick to more natural color palettes, relying on a specter of browns and greys. If you decide to do so, be sure to add shades of red or purple, that will make elements you want to emphasize pop and that break the dullness of such monochromatic color scheme.
2. Black and white combination
Black and white color schemes are timeless, especially if you want to emphasize the elegance and exclusivity of your restaurant. However, if you decide to use this combination, don’t rely only on the black and white, and 50 shades of grey. Instead, try adding a third and a fourth color, like Quay Restaurant did at the bottom of their homepage. That #DCE4E7 color really stands out, don’t you think?
If, however, you want to play with the pure black and white combination, be sure to add stunning images of your restaurant. Check out Humbert & Poyet for inspiration.
3. All shades of green
If you are running a vegan restaurant or a restaurant that serves organic food, you might want to dip your toes into using a green color palette. You can go for something vibrating and eye-catching, as the Middle Child restaurant did, or you can use a more calm, but powerful, dark green, like KOOX, a UK restaurant did.
4. Pastel colors
If you decide to use pastel colors, be extremely careful, as these colors can look too plain and dull.
We loved how Le Mugs, a French restaurant played with the pastel colors, adding pastels at the very end of the homepage.
Which color schemes will you choose?
Now that you know how colors on website impact site users mind and which color palettes are most commonly used on restaurant websites, you should feel ready to customize your WordPress theme and change its color scheme.
Which colors will you choose?
