Using Shopify for Restaurants

Using Shopify for restaurants helps you turn your website into a powerful sales and marketing tool that goes far beyond the dining room.

Key Takeaways

• Shopify lets restaurants handle online orders, gift cards, catering, merch, and even ticketed events through a single system instead of juggling multiple tools.
• Shopify’s built-in email and SMS opt-ins, easy menu updates, and homepage banners make it simple for restaurants to promote specials and limited-time offers.
• From selling packaged products nationwide to turning loyal fans into merch buyers, Shopify makes it easier to scale your restaurant’s brand.

Did you know that using Shopify for restaurants can transform a local eatery into a multifaceted online business? While Shopify is best known for ecommerce, it’s not limited to online retail. Using Shopify for service businesses like restaurants allows you to take orders, promote your brand, and serve customers beyond the confines of a dining room.

This guide will walk you through how to leverage Shopify for your restaurant, from online ordering and marketing to choosing the best design themes for your restaurant. 

How Can You Use Shopify for a Restaurant?

Shopify offers an array of features that fit naturally into any restaurant’s operations. Here are several ways you can use Shopify for your restaurant. 

Take Online Orders 

Shopify lets you take pickup and delivery orders right on your own website. Customers add your menu to a cart and check out from Shopify’s checkout.

Here’s how to set up online orders:

1. Go to Settings → Shipping and delivery in your Shopify admin.
2. Under Local pickup, click Set up for your restaurant’s location and enable This location offers local pickup.
3. Under Local delivery, click Manage and enable This location offers local delivery.
4. Set delivery zones by zip codes or area, and choose if delivery is free or has a fee.

Now, pickup and delivery options show up at checkout when someone enters an address you serve.

Sell Gift Cards and Prepaid Meals

Selling gift cards via your Shopify restaurant website brings money in up front and drives return visits. Gift cards are great for holidays, gifts, or prepaid meals, and customers like the flexibility of buying them online. Shopify’s system automatically generates codes and delivers them digitally. 

How to turn on gift cards in Shopify:

1. Go to Products → Gift Cards in Shopify.
2. Click Activate gift cards (if you haven’t already).
3. Click Add a gift card product, set the denomination options, attach an image, and publish it to your Online Store.

Customers can now buy digital gift cards right from your menu.

Manage Catering and Large Orders in One Place

You can treat large orders like any other product in Shopify, whether it’s a party platter or event catering. That way, catering requests are processed through the same system as your normal orders, and you don’t have to juggle separate tools or phone orders.

How to set this up:

1. Go to Products → All products.
2. Click Add product.
3. Name it (like “Catering – Feeds 15”), add price and details, then publish.

You might also create a Collection (e.g., Catering) so customers can see all large-order options at once.

Promote Specials and Limited-Time Menus

When using Shopify for your restaurant, you can change your menu online in minutes and highlight chef specials, event menus, or limited-time offers so customers know what’s new. 

Here’s where you go to create specials:

• Update or add items under Products → All products.
• Create event info in Online Store → Pages.

You can even add coordinated banners on your site via Online Store → Themes → Customize so that every visitor immediately sees your special offer without having to search for it.

Collect Customer Information for Email and Text Marketing

Every time someone orders through your Shopify store or buys a gift card, you can collect their email or phone number if they opt in. This builds a list you can use to send newsletters, special offers, and updates that help bring people back again and again.

How to set up marketing opt-in settings:

• In your Shopify admin, go to Settings → Checkout.
• Under the Marketing options section, turn on the “Email” and “SMS” checkboxes.
• Enabling the SMS marketing checkbox at checkout lets customers opt in with their phone number.
• You should update your checkout label language so it clearly explains what they’re signing up for (“Text me deals & updates”), which helps improve opt-in rates.

These checkboxes must stay optional to comply with marketing consent laws like GDPR and CAN-SPAM. You cannot force marketing opt-ins at checkout.

Add Merchandise or Branded Items To Boost Revenue

Selling merch turns your biggest fans into walking billboards, and it creates a new revenue stream that doesn’t rely on the kitchen being slammed. Because everything lives inside Shopify, your merchandise sales sync seamlessly with your food orders, inventory, and reports.

Restaurant merch also works great for:

• Limited-edition drops (anniversaries, seasonal designs, collabs)
• Giftable items around holidays
• Upsells at checkout (“Add our house hot sauce?”)

Here’s how to set up merchandise sales in Shopify:

1. Go to Products → Add product in your Shopify admin.
2. Upload clean photos that show the item clearly. Including lifestyle shots helps merch feel more premium.
3. Write a clear product name and description. Explain what it is, who it’s for, and why it’s special.
4. Set pricing and inventory. Track sizes, colors, or flavors so you don’t oversell.
5. Publish to your Online Store. At checkout, offer local pickup, shipping, or delivery depending on what makes sense for the item.

Ideally, you’d create a dedicated “Merch” or “Shop” section in the navigation area of your restaurant’s Shopify site so customers can find branded items fast. You can also feature bestsellers on your homepage or add merch to post-order confirmation emails for easy repeat sales.

Accept Reservations or Deposits Online

Shopify doesn’t have built-in table reservations or event ticketing, but it does let you add that functionality through third-party apps. That’s especially helpful if your restaurant hosts ticketed dinners, wine tastings, pop-up events, or reservation-only experiences where you want guests to pay upfront.

Apps let you sell tickets directly through your restaurant’s Shopify store using the same checkout customers already trust. You can create different ticket types, require payment in advance, and reduce no-shows without sending customers to a third-party site.

Adding third-party event management apps to your Shopify account is really easy:

• Visit the Shopify App Store.
• Search for event, ticketing, or reservation apps that support paid bookings, such as Evey Events.
• Install an app and follow the setup steps to create your event or reservation offering.

With event management tools like Evey Events, tickets are delivered digitally (PDF, Apple Wallet, or calendar invites) and include QR codes for easy check-in. You can also message attendees before or after the event and connect your event list with email tools like Klaviyo or Mailchimp, which makes it easier to promote future dinners, specials, or experiences.

What Are the Best Shopify Themes for Restaurants?

Choosing the right look for your restaurant’s website is important for making a great first impression. Shopify themes control your site’s design and layout, and several themes are particularly well-suited for restaurants, cafes, and food businesses. Here are some of the best Shopify themes for restaurants.

Crave Shopify Theme

Crave is a free Shopify theme created by Shopify itself, designed especially for food and beverage businesses. In fact, if you select “Restaurants” as your industry during Shopify setup, the Crave theme is automatically suggested. 

This Shopify theme for restaurants features an eye-catching, vibrant style that’s perfect for showcasing food photos. Crave is mobile-optimized and has energetic colors to match bold, flavorful brands. It’s an excellent starting point for a restaurant that wants a modern, fun look without extra cost. 

Takeout Shopify Theme

Takeout is a premium Shopify theme built specifically for restaurants and fast-casual food businesses. It actually comes with multiple style presets (“Takeout,” “Crumbs,” and “Pantry”) tailored to different food niches. 

What makes Takeout really stand out are its restaurant-friendly features. For example, it offers a menu-style layout for your items so your online menu can resemble a real menu. 

This Shopify theme also has an option to display opening hours and restrict orders when you’re closed. It even lets you show a live message like “We’re closed now, but you can preorder for tomorrow,” which sets the right expectations for customers. Other perks include built-in dietary icons (vegan, gluten-free, etc.) that auto-tag products and a highly responsive mobile experience for on-the-go ordering. 

Foodie Shopify Theme

Foodie is another popular Shopify theme known for its focus on food sellers. It’s great for small inventory shops or single-location restaurants that want a clean, conversion-focused site. 

The Foodie theme is versatile and puts your dishes front and center with big images. A nice feature of Foodie is an easy way to highlight contact info or store location at the top of the page, which is great for local restaurants. Foodie also supports age verification pop-ups, which are useful if you sell wine or beer, and generally has a welcoming, mouth-watering design.

What Are Examples of Restaurants That Use Shopify?

Many restaurants and food businesses have successfully embraced Shopify. Look at the following real examples of restaurants using Shopify, and see what they’re doing well.

Little Sesame (Washington, DC)

Little Sesame started as a local hummus and pita shop that turned its beloved hummus recipe into a nationwide consumer packaged goods brand. Using Shopify, the restaurant began selling tubs of their hummus across the country, far beyond their restaurant’s walls. 

With Shopify, they could handle direct-to-consumer orders, shipping, and even subscription boxes for hummus. This example highlights how a restaurant can identify a star product and build an online business around it. Shopify provided Little Sesame the infrastructure to process orders securely and present a professional storefront that matched their brand’s story of culinary passion.

Famiglia Baldassarre (Toronto, Canada)

Famiglia Baldassarre is a fresh pasta shop and lunch counter that uses Shopify in a smart, slightly unexpected way. The restaurant sells fresh pasta by the kilogram, pantry staples like sauces, and branded merch such as T-shirts and hats. 

Customers might stop in for lunch, then later order pasta online to cook at home or grab a hoodie to show their support for the restaurant. Shopify helps turn that in-person love into online sales without losing the brand’s vibe.

Behind the scenes, Shopify keeps things simple. Inventory stays organized, orders are easy to manage, and everything—from pasta pickups to merch shipments—runs through one system. 

Is Shopify Good for Restaurants?

Shopify is an excellent way to build an online presence for restaurants that want to sell more than just meals in the dining room. With Shopify, it’s easy to offer online ordering, gift cards, merch, or packaged products without a lot of technical hassle. If you want to grow your restaurant’s brand and reach more customers, Shopify gives you a flexible, reliable way to do it.

Using Shopify for Restaurants Works Better With Powerful Event Management Tools

Using Shopify for restaurants becomes even more impactful when you pair your store with the right event management tools. Evey Events lets you sell tickets for tastings, pop-ups, reservation-only dinners, and virtual experiences directly from your existing Shopify checkout.

With Evey, you can create multiple ticket types, deliver tickets digitally with scannable QR codes, and communicate with guests before and after the event, all from one dashboard. 

If hosting events is part of your restaurant’s growth strategy, install Evey Events, a Shopify events app built for selling, managing, and scaling restaurant events with confidence.