Show menu on website WITHOUT online ordering? [restaurant]

[ebuchheit]

Hey, friends! I currently have a Wix website but I'm looking to switch to Square/Weebly, as it would streamline updating prices and keeping this up to date for my customers. The thing is, we are not looking to take on online ordering at this time. Is there a way to have my items listed with live-pricing but not have it available for purchase? I know I can set it unavailable, but it would say out of stock, which defeats the purpose and would 86 it from my registers.

Thanks!

[TheRealChipA · Accepted solution]

Hi there @ebuchheit.  There is only one way to do this, currently.  You’d create your store as usual, but then you mark your store as not accepting orders.  The toggle for this is found from your web dashboard > Online.  There is a  button at the top that either says “Accepting orders” in blue or “not accepting orders” in grey.  Click on that button to redirect to a screen to toggle your store off and on.

One word of caution, however.  This will ONLY show your items and prices, as well as a picture and/or description.  If visitors click on the item, other information such as modifiers will not be displayed.  Rather they will see the basic item information with the message “Our store is not currently accepting orders.”

[ebuchheit]

You have a pretty nice site - is that through Square?

Thanks for the guidance and understanding where I'm coming from. Do you think that that message when you click on an item would be a turn off to customers or have a disclaimer to explain it and retain their business?

[TheRealChipA]

Well, thank you!  Yes, that is a Square Online site.  I switched to it from Weebly 5 or 6 years ago and as Square has continued to evolve their website builder I’ve taken full advantage of many of the new features.  I do have a wishlist for features I would love to see, so hopefully I’ll be able to use those one day.

Honestly, in my experience, that message is not a problem at all.  You’ll notice on my online store that I have a header describing the fact that we never start making orders until we see the customer, for obvious reasons in an ice cream shop! Ha.  If I do turn off my online store, say for a local festival, I usually just get phone calls to be sure I’m open and some even place a phone order.  I’ve never been told by anyone that the message turned them off.  If I were you, I’d add a header to your store page like I have and say something along the lines of “here are our items and prices.  Currently we only take in-person or phone orders.”  That should do the trick and set expectations.