Home > Articles > Shopify Taste Theme Review: Best Free Theme For F&B Startups

Shopify Taste Theme Review: Best Free Theme For F&B Startups

December 25, 2023
Written and researched by experts at AvadaLearn more about our methodology

By Sam Nguyen

CEO Avada Commerce

In this comprehensive review, we embark on a journey to uncover the true essence of the Taste theme.

Key Takeaways:

  • The Shopify Taste theme best suits Shopify merchant beginners specializing in the F&B industry.
  • The theme offers a set of features to effectively run a new online store, such as a mega menu, promo banners, product reviews and recommendations, and more.

What Is The Taste Shopify Theme?

Shopify has developed the Taste theme as a free Online Store 2.0 theme, with its target market being the food and drink industry. 

What Is The Taste Shopify Theme?

The Shopify Taste Theme exudes a clean and fresh vibe with its clean lines, ample white space, and stylish typography. Its visually pleasing elements and attention to detail enhance the shopping experience, instilling customer confidence.

Despite having a simple and minimalist layout, the theme has enough built-in features to boost your store conversions, such as a mega menu, quick buy, high-resolution images, promotion banners, and many more.

Who Should Use Shopify Taste Theme?

The Taste Shopify theme’s built-in features can cater to various types of F&B businesses, from restaurants to coffee or pastry shops, and are especially well-suited for Shopify merchants who are:

  • Starts up
  • SMEs
  • Merchants with minimalist design preferences
  • Merchants with simple product types
  • Merchants targeting mobile shoppers

7 Features That Make Taste A Leading Free Shopify Theme

Quick Buy

The Quick Buy feature offered by the theme accelerates the purchasing process, allowing customers to simply click the Quick Buy button directly from the product list or catalog page. This reduces the number of clicks or taps needed to make a purchase, making the process faster and more convenient. For F&B startups, this could mean more efficient ordering, especially during peak times.

The fewer steps there are in the purchase process, the less likely customers are to abandon their carts. By reducing the complexity of the buying process, Quick Buy can help decrease cart abandonment rates. This can significantly improve the conversion rates for F&B startups.

Quick Buy

Mega Menu

This is such a crucial feature of the Taste Shopify theme for a business with an extensive product catalog that many paid themes still need to offer. For startups in the Food & Beverage (F&B) industry, this feature can be a game changer.

A Mega Menu allows for organizing products in categories in a visually appealing and easy-to-navigate manner. It can accommodate many options, making it perfect for F&B startups with a wide variety of items on offer, such as different types of food, beverages, meal plans, dietary options, and more.

For example, a bakery shop might have categories like ‘Breads’, ‘Pastries’, ‘Cakes’, and ‘Cookies.’ Each category can have subcategories such as ‘Gluten-Free,’ ‘Vegan,’ ‘Organic,’ etc. A mega menu allows the shop to showcase all these categories and subcategories in a structured way without overwhelming the customer.

The Taste Shopify theme can make personalized product suggestions based on a customer’s previous browsing history or purchase habits. This boosts the total amount spent per order. For instance, if a shopper puts a bottle of red wine into their cart, the theme may propose adding a type of cheese that goes well with that wine. This may encourage the shopper to buy more than they initially planned.

The Taste Shopify theme also uses the responses to these product recommendations to gather valuable data. This can give new businesses insights into what their customers like and how they shop, which can be helpful when planning sales and marketing tactics. In simpler terms, it helps startups understand their customers better, enabling them to make smarter business decisions.

Cross-selling and Recommended Products

High-resolution Images & Video 

Supporting high-resolution images and videos could be customers’ first impression of your store’s quality, from the texture of a cake to the freshness of the ingredients. Every small detail can be captured and presented to the customer, thereby enhancing the perceived value and quality of the product. 

In the F&B industry, presentation matters as much as the product itself. High-resolution images allow businesses to showcase their offerings in the most appealing way possible. A well-presented image of a dish or beverage can trigger an emotional response in potential customers, enticing them to purchase. 

Moreover, video integration adds an extra layer of interaction. Businesses can use this feature to showcase the process behind creating their products, such as a time-lapse video of a prepared dish or a bartender skillfully mixing a cocktail. This builds customer interest and increases their trust by offering transparency.

Rich Information 

The Taste Shopify theme allows startups in the Food and beverage (F&B) industry to provide a wealth of information about their products. This feature is essential as consumers nowadays are more aware and curious about what they consume.

  • Product Details: Startups can include detailed descriptions of each product, including ingredients, nutritional information, and sourcing information. This transparency increases customers’ trust and helps them make informed purchase decisions. For example, if a customer has dietary restrictions or preferences, such detailed information would help them choose the right products.
  • Usage Instructions: This theme allows for the inclusion of usage instructions or recipes with each product. For food products, these could be cooking or preparation instructions. For beverages, these could be serving suggestions or cocktail recipes. This value-added feature enhances the customer experience, encouraging repeat purchases and fostering a sense of community around the brand.
  • Shipping Information: With the Shopify Taste theme, businesses can clearly convey their shipping policies and timelines. This is particularly useful for F&B startups as their products often have short shelf lives and may require special shipping conditions. Providing clear, upfront information about shipping can alleviate customer concerns about receiving their products in optimal condition.
Rich Information 

Products Reviews

With Taste, startups can harness the influence of customer reviews as a foundation to drive sales. 

Reviews serve as social proof, showcasing the experiences of previous customers. For new F&B startups that may not have established a reputation yet, these reviews can help build trust and confidence among potential customers.

Reviews provide valuable feedback for startups. Positive reviews identify what’s working well, while negative reviews can highlight areas for improvement. This feedback can help F&B startups continually refine their products and services.

Promotion banners

Promotion banners are often set up in easy-to-see spots like the top of the webpage or in the middle of content sections. These banners are big, bright, and grab the attention of anyone visiting the site. They’re great for communicating key messages or special offers.

Food and beverage startups commonly use these banners to announce deals, discounts, or other promotions. This is a powerful way to pull in customers and increase sales. These banners can highlight happy hour specials, short-term price reductions, or holiday sales.

Promotion banners are also great for showing off new items on the menu. When a startup puts a new product in the banner, it sparks curiosity and interest in their customers, motivating them to try it. A promotion banner can effectively spread the news if the startup is running an event, such as a taste testing, food fair, or pop-up sale. It’s also handy for sharing key updates like new opening hours, new locations, or new delivery areas.

Promotion banners

Shopify Taste Theme: Pros and Cons

Pros Cons
  • Free to use
  • Clean and roomy layout
  • Customization options
  • Mobile-friendly
  • Product Showcase
  • Primary features provided
  • Easy setup
  • Limit functions for advanced needs
  • Potential performance impact

What Do Users Say About The Shopify Taste Theme?

Taste’s coverage is relatively low compared to other free themes, for which they have received only 3 reviews on the Shopify Theme Store so far.

However, there isn’t any negative feedback. All users have appreciated the ease of use, lots of options, and clean visuals that the theme brings in. Some users may have specific needs or expectations that the Taste Shopify theme might not fully meet.

How To Try And Publish Taste Shopify Theme?

Here are the steps to try the Taste theme

  • From the Shopify admin dashboard, go to Online Store > Themes.
  • Click “Visit theme store” to directly visit the store
  • Find “Taste” on the search bar 
  • Click “Try theme” to try it

If you are delighted with the theme, you can publish your Taste demo store by

  • From the Shopify admin dashboard, go to Online Store > Themes
  • Choose the “Taste” theme that you have customized before
  • Choose “Publish” in the Action box.

2 Beautiful Stores Using The Shopify Taste Theme

Glogang

Stores Using The Shopify Taste Theme

Glo Gang Worldwide is a bold and expressive brand offering a range of streetwear and accessories that resonate with a vibrant youth culture.

Using the Shopify Taste theme, the store design is direct and focused, with a clear layout that effectively showcases their products. Bold visuals and a consistent color scheme reflect the brand’s identity and make browsing enjoyable and easy.

Categories are well-organized, and the site’s responsive design ensures a seamless shopping experience across various devices.

What the Teacher Wears

Beautiful Stores Using The Shopify Taste Theme

What the Teacher Wears is a fashion-forward brand that caters to stylish, modern educators who love chic and comfortable clothes.

The store design impresses with its clean and organized layout, showcasing a selection of new arrivals, dresses, knitwear, and more in an easily navigable format. The Taste Shopify theme enhances the visual appeal with high-quality images and a cohesive color scheme that reflects the brand’s style.

Quick links and a clear categorization of products make browsing and finding the perfect outfit a breeze.

Which Shopify Theme Is Better: Taste or Dawn?

Which Shopify Theme Is Better: Taste or Dawn?

The feature set

Both Taste and Dawn offer a solid set of features that cater to the needs of online stores, such as a mega menu, quick buy, promo banners, and many more.

Design

Taste has a classic vibe with clean lines and ample white space, while Dawn showcases a contemporary design with vibrant color options and a visually engaging layout.

User Reviews and Ratings

So far, Dawn has received 129 reviews on the Shopify marketplace, which is much more than Taste. However, Dawn has garnered a low positive feedback proportion of only 35%. Taste has 3 reviews, of which 67% are positive.

Documentation and Support

Shopify provides comprehensive documentation and support for both the Taste and Dawn themes. They offer resources such as tutorials and guides. Shopify’s support team is available to help resolve any technical issues or inquiries.

Pricing

Both Taste and Dawn are free Shopify themes.

The Verdict

Overall, the Dawn Shopify theme is more popular due to its more modern and versatile look. 

Both are free themes developed by Shopify that target different customer segments. So, aspects of customer support or built-in features could be similar. Ultimately, choosing between the Taste and Dawn themes depends on your business’s types and needs.

Shopify Taste Theme: FAQs

Yes, Taste is a highly regarded free Shopify theme for the F&B industry, known for its minimalist design and user-friendly features that can offer a visually appealing and seamless shopping experience for customers. 
Yes, switching your Shopify store’s theme does not cause data loss. All your product information, customer data, and order history remain intact when you change themes. However, any customizations or alterations you’ve made to your current theme (like specific design tweaks or custom code) won’t be automatically transferred to the new theme. You’ll have to manually implement these changes again in the Taste theme if desired.
The Taste theme itself is a free Shopify theme and does not come with any additional costs or subscriptions.
Yes, you can. Shopify provides customization options that allow you to modify your theme’s code, including adding custom HTML, CSS, Liquid, or JavaScript code.
Yes. Shopify, as a developer of the Taste theme, provides built-in functionality to easily connect and integrate with popular analytics and tracking services, including Google Analytics.

Ending Words

If you are a budding Shopify merchant looking for a compelling theme for your online store among the multitude of options available, the Taste Shopify theme has emerged as a compelling choice. 


Sam Nguyen is the CEO and founder of Avada Commerce, an e-commerce solution provider headquartered in Singapore. He is an expert on the Shopify e-commerce platform for online stores and retail point-of-sale systems. Sam loves talking about e-commerce and he aims to help over a million online businesses grow and thrive.