Any flexible CMS perfect for restaurant website’s back-end?

Question

I’m building a website for a restaurant which consists of several static pages like ‘About us’ and editable menu.

I need a CMS flexible enough to be able to add items individually (by individually, I mean adding items doesn’t equal pasting a HTML list of n products into another static page).

Each item should contain its name, description, price and category. The list of added items should be displayed using templates the way I want them to.

Can you suggest any lightweight CMS which can provide similar conditions?

Answer 1

Sounds like a job for Wordpress 3.0 plus Custom Post Types UI + Verve Meta Boxes plugins. Wordpress will handle the static pages, the other two plugins will allow you to make a Menu Item post type with custom fields.

Answer 2

It is not exactly lightweight, but you could do it with Drupal. You can define you own content type "product", use the CCK module to add your fields (price, ...) and use the Views module to display it how you want.

Drupal has a relatively steep learning curve, so it may be overkill for this project. It is definitely flexible enough for this, though.

Answer 3

There are tons of options for simple page creation. Have you considered just using one of the many free website builders out there? Then you don't even have to worry about finding hosting, just make it happen quickly and easily with one of them. For instance, take a look at Weebly (review here) or Wix. Both allow for free pages and both are incredibly easy to use. Squarespace (review here) is another solid option (and one of my favorites) but charges a small fee (which I personally think is worth it).

Weebly allows for some slick drag and drop of page elements into place as does Wix. They are what I would classify as the easiest of the batch while Squarespace provides for an excellent user interface experience.

Other options if you'd prefer something hosted on your own would depend on your experience level. I am a huge fan of Processwire and ImpressPages has come along nicely and is great little CMS too.

These are exceptions to the typical Top Three that everyone tends to recommend I know but I like to spread the word about other projects instead of the usual ones.

Cheers!

Mike