Squarespace makes a restaurant look good. Keeping it current is still your job.
Squarespace is the better choice for a restaurant that wants a genuinely handsome site and has somebody willing to maintain it, and a managed build is the better choice when the design has to hold up while a nine-course menu turns over every six weeks. Design is the one area where we will not claim a blanket advantage, because their templates are good.
01
The design argument, honestly
Squarespace templates are well made. A restaurant with decent photography and some patience can get a site out of it that looks better than plenty of agency work. We are not going to pretend our advantage is that we make prettier pages than Squarespace. Our advantage is narrower and more specific: their templates are built for an average business and ours are built around the shape of a menu, which matters enormously for a tasting sequence, a grouped wine list or a small-plates board and matters very little for an about page.
02
Where a restaurant template stops fitting
A tasting menu is a sequence with a description line under each course and an optional pairing beside it. A wine list is a grouped index with glass and bottle pricing and regional headings. A small-plates board is meant to read as a shared table rather than one dish per guest. Those are three different page structures, and a general template offers one flexible layout that you bend toward each of them. The bending is where the sloppiness creeps in over a year, because each seasonal edit bends it slightly differently.
03
What Squarespace documents about getting your content out
This is worth knowing before you build three years of menus and articles inside it. Squarespace's own help center states that its export covers layout pages, one blog page with its posts, and text, image and gallery blocks, while album, cover, index, info, calendar, portfolio and store pages cannot be exported, along with custom CSS. It also states that it is not possible to export content from one Squarespace site and import it into another. That is their own description and it is a reasonable position for them to take; it is simply a constraint you should weigh with open eyes.
04
Hosting and the thing neither of us charges extra for
Squarespace states that all its plans include bandwidth and hosting. So do we: global edge network, SSL, DDoS protection and unmetered bandwidth inside the monthly figure, with no separate hosting invoice and no bandwidth overage in month four. On this one, the two offers are genuinely comparable and there is no point manufacturing a difference. The difference is upstream of hosting: who builds the pages, and who changes them when the season turns.
Side by side
The rows below are the ones that actually decide it for a chef-led kitchen. Where a cell describes Squarespace, it either reports something read on their own documentation or says plainly that we are not claiming it.
| What matters | Squarespace | MenuWebStudio |
|---|---|---|
| Out-of-the-box design quality | High. Their templates are genuinely well made | Built around your menu structure rather than a general layout |
| Menu page structure | One flexible layout bent toward your menu | Structures built for a tasting sequence, a grouped list or a shared board |
| Who keeps it current | You | The studio, from whatever you send |
| Turnaround on a seasonal swap | However long you can give it | 2 to 5 working days, counted as one revision |
| Hosting and bandwidth | Included on all plans, per Squarespace documentation | Included. Edge network, SSL, DDoS protection, unmetered bandwidth |
| Export | Partial, and cannot be imported into another Squarespace site, per their documentation | Your content is yours. Domain transferred free. Page code stays ours |
| Page speed | Varies with template, imagery and blocks used | 90+ PageSpeed guaranteed on mobile and desktop |
| Articles | You write and publish them | 2 or 3 researched articles a week, written for your kitchen and area |
| Structured data | Some automatic, beyond that it is your job | Matched to page type, set at launch, maintained |
| Cost model | A plan fee plus your editing time | One monthly fee, build fee invoiced only after launch |
Choose them
When Squarespace is the better choice
This is the competitor we most often tell people to stay with, because when it is working it is working.
- You already have a Squarespace site you like, it is current, and somebody keeps it that way.
- You have strong photography and a design eye, and you enjoy the building.
- Your menu is stable enough that editing it is an occasional job rather than a recurring one.
- You want to control every word yourself, immediately, without a turnaround window.
- You need an integrated store for merchandise or gift cards inside the same platform.
Choose us
When the managed build is the better choice
The case for us shows up when the menu moves faster than the person editing it.
- The site looks good but the menu on it is two seasons old, which is the most common thing we are called about.
- Your menu shape genuinely fights the template: a long grouped wine list is the usual culprit.
- You want the menu to be text a search engine can read rather than a handsome image of a menu.
- You want articles published weekly without writing them.
- You want one party accountable for design, speed, hosting and the weekly change.
Together
Moving off Squarespace cleanly
Because their export is partial by their own documentation, we plan a move around the content rather than around a file.
- 01We work from your live site rather than from an export, so nothing depends on what their export format does or does not carry.
- 02Menus, story pages, press coverage and any articles that earn traffic are carried across.
- 03Every existing page address is mapped to its new equivalent with a redirect in place.
- 04Your Squarespace site stays live until you sign off, and you keep your own copy of everything afterwards.
In their words
What restaurant teams tell us
Everyone talks about the new design; I cared more about where the old seasonal dining menus links would land. We reviewed the full redirect map before launch and checked the destinations ourselves. Not one ‘your link is broken’ message arrived after launch.
Dorian PrescottTable bookings administrator, Mexican cantina restaurantThey pushed us to be precise about seasonal dining menus, which felt slow at first and right at the end. The boundaries are drawn clearly: what the site settles, and what our people still decide. Correcting the site's accidental promises is no longer part of our calls.
Erica GatsbyReservations administrator, Chinese restaurant with banquet roomThe idea that visitors could sort themselves before writing seemed obvious only in hindsight. The sender picks the route, which means the best-informed person does the sorting. Returning customers no longer repeat the whole form to ask one question.
Felix HenshawFront of house supervisor, Modern British restaurant
Questions about Squarespace
Are your designs better than Squarespace templates?
Not as a blanket claim, and we will not make one. Their templates are good. Ours are built around the specific shape of a restaurant menu, which matters a great deal on a tasting menu or a grouped wine list and very little on an about page.
Can we export our Squarespace content and hand it to you?
Partially. Squarespace documents that its export covers layout pages, one blog page and text, image and gallery blocks, while several page types and custom CSS cannot be exported. We work from your live site instead, so the export limits do not affect the move.
Is hosting included with you like it is with them?
Yes. Squarespace states hosting and bandwidth are included on all its plans, and ours are too: edge network, SSL, DDoS protection and unmetered bandwidth in the monthly fee with no separate invoice.
Our Squarespace site looks great. Why would we move?
If it is current and somebody is keeping it that way, you probably should not. The reason people move is that the design outlived the person who was maintaining it, and the menu is now two seasons behind the kitchen.
Will our search rankings survive?
We map every existing page address to its new equivalent with redirects and carry across the pages that actually earn traffic. Individual page positions can move during any rebuild and we will not promise otherwise.
Can we still sell gift cards?
Through whichever platform you already use. We do not run a store, so we point at your existing provider clearly rather than asking you to migrate commerce as part of a website change.
How long does the move take?
7 days on The Folio, 10 on The Broadside and 15 on The Standing Order, counted from the onboarding call rather than from purchase.
Do we lose the ability to change things ourselves?
Yes, and it is worth being clear about it. You send changes and we make them inside 2 to 5 working days. For owners who like editing their own site, that is a genuine downside of our arrangement.
What happens to our domain?
If it is registered elsewhere we simply point it. If you want a new one, your plan includes a domain registered in your name, and you keep it if you cancel.
Sources
Squarespace is a trademark of Squarespace, Inc.. MenuWebStudio is an independent studio and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Squarespace, Inc..
Nothing on this page is a claim about Squarespace beyond what is cited here. We read their own published material on . Products change; check their own site before you decide.
See what the alternative actually looks like
A live walk-through of the site you would get, built on your own menu, in about 30 minutes. Plans from $117 a month, the $647 build fee invoiced only after launch, domain and hosting included.
Book a demoOr email . If Squarespace suits you better, we will say so.