The last time I paid some attention to poorly designed restaurant websites, I cited as the hallmarks of a terrible home page poorly chosen music played in a loop, excessive flash and clunky navigation, along with lack of applicable information. Making hours of operation, location, a basic understanding of the menu difficult to find while playing brain-splitting tunes is a sure way to invoke madness in a sizable portion of the prospective dining population.
In the original list, sushi restaurants dominated, but while researching a holiday tamale buying guide, I realized Tex-Mex websites, for the most part, are far worse offenders.
Allow me to demonstrate.
Before the rest of Hacienda on Henderson's website loads, the Champs are four bars into that Pee Wee Herman ruined classic, Tequila. All you have to do is add a flute playing Kokopelli and a dancing lizard and you've got a recipe for most annoying website ever.
On the El Fenix website, the thrum of a Latin guitar is almost soothing. But give it time. Within a minute it builds into loud rhythmic strumming. Thankfully the music is abruptly cut when you start to navigate the site. But if you go back to the home page it starts the monotonous build again.
Uncle Julio's pulls the same rope-a-dope as El Fenix, softly seducing with the warm brass trumpet tones before the cadence quickly builds into a peppy mariachi number. Click anywhere on the site and it quickly halts. Click back on the home page and the mariachi pain train begins again.
Wow. Luna's Tortilla takes grand prize by a mile. Raspy, tinny brass playing a staccato upbeat number that bores into your brain like an audible torture mechanism. I'd rather be water-boarded than endure 30 seconds it took me to find the hours and address buried in the bottom of the right rail.
Have your own restaurant website gripes? Leave them in the comments below.
