Here's the key:

A successful restaurant owner cultivates the ambiance of their venture--from the table layout to the color and texture of napkins, from the lighting to the type of door handles, they likely have an opinion and a firm belief that they are there to curate and create an experience for their patrons.

The problem is that these instincts--typically correct in the physical world!--lead to website design input that goes against the conventions of the virtual world.

Thus, a restaurant website will be needlessly animated, or sing music to you, or do any of those other things that we all dislike in our pages, all with the good intention of providing ambiance.

Why is flash automatically seen as bad? When done right it is a seamless experience that only the most technical could possibly take issue with. I, for one, enjoy papa john's interactive pizza order menu.

It isn't always bad, but it's definitely slower than text and images. My purpose in ordering a pizza is to order a pizza. When I'm doing a task, I don't want fun animations; I want to finish quickly. What do you have, what does it look like, what does it cost? Pick, pay, done.

Ordering a pizza is not part of the evening's entertainment; eating a pizza is.