Does My Pub Actually Need a Website When Everyone Just Uses Facebook?

Almost every publican we speak to says the same thing: "The Facebook page does everything already." And for posting a Sunday roast photo or a live-music line-up, it does a decent job. The problem is what a Facebook page can't do — and where it quietly costs you covers.

Here is the honest version. A Facebook page is rented space on someone else's platform. A website is property you own. Both have a place. But when a hungry diner is deciding where to eat tonight, the two are not equal.

The three moments Facebook lets you down

Think about how people actually choose a pub in 2026. It usually comes down to three moments, and Facebook struggles with all of them.

1. The 6pm-on-a-Saturday "are they doing food?" moment. A couple in the next town open their phone and search gastropub near me or [your pub name] kitchen hours. Google answers that question with a website and a Google Business Profile — a map pin, opening hours, a menu link, a phone number. A Facebook page rarely surfaces cleanly for these searches, and even when it does, the visitor has to scroll a feed to hunt for hours that might be three weeks old. If they can't find your kitchen times in ten seconds, they book the pub that made it easy.

2. The reach-throttling moment. This is the big one. Organic reach on Facebook business Pages has collapsed over the past decade — it's now widely cited in the low single digits, often around 2–5% of the people who follow you. Put plainly: if 2,000 locals "like" your page, a typical post might reach 40–100 of them unless you pay to boost it. You built that audience. Meta decides who sees it. That is the whole business model.

3. The rules-change moment. Meta changes what the algorithm rewards whenever it likes. Reels over photos, then video over Reels, then something else. Pages get restricted, hacked, or wrongly flagged with no easy appeal. Your entire online presence sitting inside an account you don't control is a real risk — not a hypothetical one.

Facebook page vs your own website

You don't have to choose one or the other. The point is that a page alone leaves gaps a website fills.

"But everyone's on Facebook" — are they, though?

Not the people you most want. A large share of higher-spending diners, older locals and the lunchtime business crowd either don't use Facebook much or won't dig through a feed to find you. Younger diners increasingly search on Google, Instagram and even TikTok, then click through to — a website. Relying on one platform means you're invisible to everyone who lives outside it.

There's also a credibility gap. A gastropub with rooms, a private dining space or a serious kitchen looks more established with its own site. When a customer is choosing where to hold a wake, a christening lunch or a 40th, "we've only got a Facebook page" quietly reads as "small operation." Fair or not, it costs you the big bookings.

What a website does that a page structurally can't

• Ranks in Google. A proper website is how you show up for Sunday roast [town], dog-friendly pub near me and [your name] menu. That traffic is people actively looking to eat — the warmest leads you'll ever get.
• Feeds AI answers. When someone asks an AI assistant or Google's AI Overview "where can I get a good Sunday lunch in [town]?", it pulls from structured websites, not buried Facebook posts.
• Owns the booking. You decide how tables are taken — a form, a phone tap, or an integration — instead of routing everything through Messenger.
• Keeps the menu current. One place to update. No hunting for the pinned post from March.
• Never disappears. Your domain and your content stay yours if a platform changes its rules or your account has a bad day.

Every Brightray gastropub site also has WhatsApp for Business click-to-chat built in as standard — so a diner can tap once and message you to ask about a table, a dietary need or a dog by the fire, straight from the page. It's the informal, instant contact people already expect, pointed at a channel you control.

Keep Facebook. Just don't let it be the whole show.

None of this means deleting your page. Social media is brilliant for personality — the specials board, the new chef, the beer garden in July. That's exactly what it's for. Use Facebook and Instagram to build the relationship, and use your website as the home base everything points to.

Think of it like your pub itself. Facebook is the A-board on the pavement pulling people in. Your website is the building they walk into. You wouldn't run a pub with a chalkboard and no premises. The same logic applies online.

What it costs to stop renting

The reason most publicans never get off Facebook is the assumption a website is expensive and slow. It doesn't have to be. Brightray builds gastropubs a fixed-price, done-for-you website for a flat £500, live in about 7 days — menu, hours, booking, gallery and WhatsApp chat sorted, with no monthly agency fee and no learning a builder in your evenings.

You can see how it works on the websites for gastropubs page, why the 7-day turnaround is realistic, and exactly what's included for £500. One fixed fee, a site you own, and the reassurance that when Facebook next changes the rules, your pub doesn't go dark.

The question isn't really "does my pub need a website when everyone uses Facebook?" It's "do I want the one place people check my menu and hours to be something I own — or something Meta rents me?"