Restaurant website hosting: protect bookings, menus and online orders.

1. Map the entire ordering and booking journey

List what happens when customers view the menu, place an order, reserve a table or submit an enquiry. Check whether the functions run on your website, a plugin or a separate third-party ordering service. Your hosting provider may not control those external systems. Keep contact details, opening hours and menu access available if ordering is temporarily unavailable.

2. Treat backups as a recovery procedure, not a checkbox

Confirm which parts are backed up, how frequently, where copies are stored and who can restore them. For WordPress or another database-backed ordering site, a backup of files alone may not restore orders or settings. Agree a practical recovery point and restoration time with your provider. Test restoration to a safe staging environment rather than discovering gaps during an incident.

3. Measure real mobile checkout performance

Many visitors arrive from maps, search or social channels using a phone. Test menu navigation, item selection, delivery options and checkout on mobile networks. Review image weight, caching, plugin conflicts and database load. Test at a realistic busy time rather than assuming that a fast homepage guarantees a fast ordering flow.

4. Separate hosting, security and payment responsibilities

Record who manages security updates, TLS certificates, DNS, email authentication, malware remediation and monitoring. Use the payment provider's secure hosted or tokenised checkout where appropriate; do not put raw payment-card data in a website form. Confirm the responsibilities of your website developer, ordering platform and hosting provider in writing.

5. Plan a low-risk migration

Inventory the current site and dependencies, create and verify backups, prepare a staging copy, compare ordering behaviour, choose a suitable cutover window and document rollback. Lowering DNS TTLs can help but does not guarantee instant propagation. Avoid moving during a known peak trading period. Verify website, SSL, email, analytics and order notifications after switching.

6. Choose managed care only for services actually included

Ask for written clarity on support hours, emergency response, backup retention, restoration assistance, plugin updates, hosting limits and charges for out-of-scope work. A modest monthly plan is not the same as a guaranteed incident-response SLA or dedicated enterprise infrastructure. Compare the full monthly cost and accountability against your current arrangements.