The typical old site: what our scanner would flag
Sites for tasting menurestaurants tend to fail in the same ways. Here’s the composite, rated the way our scanner rates findings — and who each one locks out.
- Critical
The menu is a PDF, not a web page
The tasting menu — the whole point of the restaurant — links out to a PDF. Screen readers handle PDFs poorly or not at all, the file doesn't reflow on a phone, and nobody can read the seven courses, the price, or the wine pairing without downloading a file. It's also a known ADA lawsuit trigger (WCAG 1.4.5, Images of Text).
- Serious
Gold text on white fails minimum contrast
The elegant champagne-gold type on a white marble background doesn't meet the 4.5:1 contrast ratio WCAG requires. Low-vision guests can't read the prix fixe price or the cancellation policy — the two things they most need before committing $145 a head.
- Serious
The photography has no descriptions
Every plate is photographed beautifully and described nowhere. A screen reader announces a filename — “IMG_2047.jpg” — or skips the image entirely, so a blind guest hears nothing about the food the chef is most proud of.
- Critical
Reservations are buried three clicks deep
The only way to book is an unlabeled third-party link tucked in the footer, behind a form whose fields use placeholder text instead of real labels. Screen-reader users can't tell what to type; keyboard users can't reliably reach the button at all.
- Moderate
An auto-playing video with no pause button
A candlelit video loops behind the hero with sound off but motion on, no pause control, and no respect for the guest's reduce-motion setting — a real problem for visitors with motion sensitivity.
The Remi rebuild
The rebuilt Lumen keeps the personality — the palette, the type, the mood — and removes the barriers. Accessible to WCAG 2.2 AA by default, and owned by the restaurant: the domain, the content, the guest relationships.
The menu is real text
Every course, price, and dietary note is real HTML text — readable by a screen reader, searchable, translatable, and zoomable to 400% without breaking. When the menu changes with the market, the kitchen edits it in seconds.
The palette is editorial and AA-clamped
Lumen keeps its look — Cormorant Garamond, candlelit gold on near-black — but every text/background pairing is clamped to pass WCAG 2.2 AA contrast automatically. The design stays moody; the words stay readable.
Every photo has a human-written description
Alt text is required at the database level — you can't publish a photo of a course without describing it. A screen-reader guest hears “a precisely plated tasting-menu course under warm light,” not a filename.
Reservations are part of the site
The booking flow lives on the site with real labels on every field, a keyboard path that works end to end, and no third-party detour. The video respects reduce-motion and never plays sound on its own.
Click through the live demo
A tasting menu is a considered evening. The site should be considered too — every course readable, every price clear, every guest able to book.
Your restaurant next
Your site has its own version of this list.
Scan it free and see the findings in plain English. Then we rebuild it — migration is free, accessibility is built in to WCAG 2.2 AA, and you own everything: the domain, the content, the guest list.
Take online orders through Square and your whole site is free — $0/mo, no bill, ever. Dine-in only? A flat $99/mo founding price (regular $149), reservations included.