For cafes, beach kiosks and coffee vans from Coolangatta to Coomera: a site that gives locals and visitors your hours in Queensland time, the nearest tram stop or the parking that works, and a menu they can read, and translate, on a phone. You pay nothing until you've approved the draft.
A Gold Coast cafe serves two crowds from the same counter: locals who know the way and only want to check you're open, and visitors who spotted you on a map ten minutes ago. The site has to make sense to someone who has never set foot in Mermaid Beach, without making the regular scroll past a welcome speech to find the winter hours.
Light rail reached Burleigh Heads on 9 August 2026, with eight new stations: Mermaid Beach, Mermaid Beach South, Nobby Beach, Miami North, Miami, Christine Avenue, Second Avenue and Burleigh Heads. If one of them is closest to you, name it and give the walk. Directions written before August probably start with a car park, and people staying in Surfers Paradise or Broadbeach can now ride straight down the coast.
NSW runs daylight saving from 4 October 2026 to 4 April 2027 and Queensland doesn't, so Coolangatta and Tweed Heads are an hour apart all summer. A Coolangatta cafe opening at 6am is opening at 7am for anyone going by NSW time. Write "Queensland time" next to the hours, and if you trade on both sides of the border, give each venue its own clock.
City of Gold Coast's roadside dining permit covers tables and chairs on a footpath or in a mall, along with umbrellas, cafe barriers, menu signs, heaters and planter boxes. Coffee urns, fridges and cooking equipment aren't allowed out there. Permits run to 31 August each year, so if your outdoor area grows or shrinks at renewal, the seating described on the site should change with it.
A visitor who doesn't read English easily can run your menu through the translate button in their phone's browser, but only if the menu is text. A photo of the chalkboard or a scanned PDF won't translate, and it's hard to read on a small screen anyway. We set the menu out as real text, which also means a screen reader can read it aloud and a new price is an email away.
City of Gold Coast rates licensed food businesses from zero to five stars. On three or more, once you and council have both signed its Eat Safe agreement, council's guide lets you request an electronic copy of your logo for business material such as advertising or menus, as long as it shows your current rating. We use that file, never a photo of the window sticker, and swap it when a new assessment changes the number.
The Gold Coast Show holiday applies in the City of Gold Coast only: Friday 28 August in 2026 and Friday 27 August in 2027, about two weeks after Brisbane's Ekka holiday. Post show-day, school-holiday and summer hours on the site before they start, and keep your Google Business Profile in step, so the visitor checking Google and the local checking your site get the same answer.
Queensland leaves dogs in outdoor dining areas to each business, and owners are expected to keep them tethered or close. Someone with a dog in the car wants to know before they park, so one clear line helps: dogs welcome at the outside tables, or no dogs apart from assistance animals.
The Queensland rules a cafe website runs into are set out on our page for Brisbane cafes: Queensland Health's kilojoule labelling for chains with 20 or more outlets in the state or 50 nationally, which reaches their online ordering sites and apps, and its guidance leaving dogs in outdoor dining areas up to each business. Star ratings are run by each council, and the coast has its own scheme, Eat Safe Gold Coast. Council's Environmental Health Officers assess licensed food businesses against the Food Act 2006 and the Food Safety Standards at least once every 12 months, more often for poor performers. Only three, four or five stars can be displayed, and only after you and council have both signed the free Eat Safe agreement. Council's guide to that agreement adds that you can't make copies of its certificates or stickers, can't show one venue's rating at another, and must take down old material once a new rating arrives. If your practices have improved, council has a form to request a review or regrade. The Eat Safe Brisbane logo belongs to a different council's scheme and is limited to holders of a Brisbane City Council food licence, so it doesn't carry over to the coast.
For tables outside, City of Gold Coast's roadside dining permit is the one that matters. It applies to dining areas on public land outside your premises, such as a footpath or a mall, and not to private property. Council asks for applications at least 30 working days before you plan to start trading outside, and warns that approval isn't certain. An application needs at least $20 million public liability insurance, details of the clear path left for pedestrians and, for a new or changed area, a dining plan. If the area runs past your own frontage, you also need a letter of no objection from the neighbouring operator and the landowner. Seating under an awning needs a certification from a Registered Professional Engineer of Queensland, shade structures take a separate permit, and a frontage on a state-controlled road needs a Road Corridor Permit from Transport and Main Roads. There's no application fee; council charges a daily rate per square metre, and the business listing on business.gov.au shows higher 2026–27 rates in Cavill Mall, Surfers Paradise Central, Broadbeach Mall, Broadbeach Central and Main Beach than in the rest of the city.
Getting around changed this year. The Queensland Government opened the 6.7-kilometre Stage 3 extension to passengers on Sunday 9 August 2026, so the tram now runs from Helensvale through Southport, Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach to Burleigh Heads, alongside the Gold Coast Highway through Mermaid Beach and Miami. For a cafe in Nobby Beach, Miami or Burleigh, that's a new way for visitors without a car to reach you, and a reason to name the station on the site instead of telling everyone to find a park. Away from the line, say where the parking is: timed bays out front, a side street, or the nearest beachfront car park.
At the southern end, Coolangatta runs straight into Tweed Heads in NSW. The NSW Government confirms Queensland doesn't use daylight saving, so through summer a customer staying in Tweed Heads lives on a different clock from a Coolangatta cafe a short walk away. Inland, the coast's cafes split between councils. Springbrook and the Currumbin Valley are in the City of Gold Coast, but Tamborine Mountain, about 35 kilometres west-northwest of Surfers Paradise, is in the Scenic Rim, so a cafe up there gets its licence and permits from a different council, and its show holiday is the Royal Queensland Show one (Monday 10 August in 2026), not the Gold Coast Show's Friday.
We're an Adelaide team and work with Gold Coast businesses by phone and email. None of the clients in our portfolio is on the coast, and we haven't built a cafe site yet; our Queensland work so far includes a dance school on Brisbane's bayside and a licensed plumber and gas fitter. You send your menu, hours and photos, we build a draft you can open on your phone between orders, and you pay once you approve it.
Neither of these is a cafe or on the Gold Coast. One is a tourism business whose page does what a cafe on the visitor trail needs: photos that sell the place, a map, the usual questions answered and a quick way to book or call. The other is a Queensland school whose site revolves around a weekly timetable people check before leaving home.
Full-day fishing charters out of Cape Jervis in South Australia, seven days a week. One page carries a booking request form, gift voucher requests, a gallery of catches, reviews, an FAQ, an embedded map and tap-to-call: much the same set of jobs as a beach cafe's page for people who've never been there before.
Visit the Cape Fishing Charters site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
A dance school at Thorneside on Brisbane's bayside. Its 12 pages include one for each program, a weekly class timetable, a filterable gallery, FAQs and an online enrolment form, and show how we keep times and schedules easy to read on a small screen.
Visit the Qld Performing Arts site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
“He listened to my feedback and made no hesitations to revise and adjust my website until we were completely happy with it.”
★ 5.0 from 33 Google reviews (opens in a new tab)
See all 14 recent client sites in our portfolio.
$399
A beach kiosk or coffee van: hours in Queensland time, the menu as text, the nearest tram stop or parking, your star rating if council gave you three or more, and a button to call, on a single page.
Our pick for most Gold Coast cafes
$899
A home page with hours and directions, a menu page visitors can translate, and a third page for catering, functions or what changes over summer.
$1,499
Cafes with venues at different points along the coast, or on both sides of the border, each with its own hours and clock, or a cafe that also runs a roastery or a function space.
Name the station, say which side of the Gold Coast Highway you're on and give the walk in minutes. Visitors staying in Surfers Paradise or Broadbeach can now ride south to Burleigh Heads, so a line written for them is worth adding. New directions are a text change, covered by the $30 monthly hosting.
In Queensland time, said plainly beside the hours. From 4 October 2026 to 4 April 2027 NSW is an hour ahead, so someone staying across the border and going by NSW time could arrive an hour after the kitchen opened, or find you've already closed. If you're running a sunrise special, the clock matters even more.
If you're rated three stars or more and you've signed council's Eat Safe agreement, council's guide says you can request an electronic version of your logo and use it on business material such as advertising or menus, as long as it shows your current rating. Send us that file and we'll place it near your hours; if you're unsure the terms cover your website, check with council's environmental health team first. The Eat Safe Brisbane logo belongs to another council's scheme and can't be used here. A new rating after your next assessment is an image change, covered by the $30 monthly hosting.
Once council has approved them. The roadside dining permit covers the tables, umbrellas and barriers on the footpath, and an area that runs past your frontage needs a letter of no objection from the neighbour and the landowner. When the approval comes through, email us and we'll update the seating details and photos.
Mostly. Tamborine Mountain is in the Scenic Rim, so your licence, permits and any star rating come from that council rather than City of Gold Coast. The Queensland rules are the same, and if your customers come up from the coast, the site should give the drive and the parking as clearly as the menu.
By phone and email. We're an Adelaide (South Australia) web design team with current clients in SA, NSW, VIC and QLD. Send your menu, hours and a handful of photos; we arrange them into a draft, you ask for as many changes as you like, and you pay once you approve it. We reply within 24 hours.
Send us your menu, your hours, your nearest tram stop or car park and a few photos of the place. We'll quote, build the draft, and you only pay once you're happy with it.
We reply within 24 hours. Prefer email? info@webcraftstudio.com.au