This vacation, I'm planning a party for my fortieth birthday (and gardening). This means web surfing to sites for rent ($300 during the week, $1450 Friday night, $2000 Saturday or Sunday) and caterers.

Most of the caterers I've looked at have hired a professional design team. This is good in theory, but in practice it's like eating larks' tounges — novelty for novelty's sake.

So, caterers, from a professional web programmer and a potential customer, don't do this:

• Flash intro: I could not care less how much you paid the design firm for your site; I just want to find what you serve and what you charge.
• Flash or Java or JavaScript site: Bye-bye! There's too many other caterers for me to slog through some crappy custom interface.
• Links to links to links: If I click "photos," most likely I want to see photos of your work, not read three paragraphs telling me to click a link that will take me to your mac.com home page. I won't.
• Generic domain name: Searching for Ryan Rogan Catering and finding only links to "bestcateringexample.com" and bridal sites means I'll think you don't have a web site, even if you shelled out a lot of money for bestcateringexample.com. Spring for ryanrogancatering.com (or .info, or .net or whatever).
• Generic contact e-mail: Info@mycatering.com is one thing, info@partyspace.com is useless.

It would be really nice if you:

• Included sample menus: I don't care that everyone on staff has the same last name; what do you make?
• Listed prices: I love my family, but I'm not paying as much for my birthday as I did for my wedding. Let's not waste each other's time.
• Listed facilities you are on the allowed list of caterers (and facilities, it would be nice if you listed allowed caterers, plus links to their web sites) and their charges.