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Shopify Crave Theme: The Perfect Theme For Food Startups

Last updated: December 05 2024

Written and researched by experts at Avada Learn more about our methodology

In this article, we will explore the various aspects of the Shopify Crave theme and how it can elevate your food startup’s online presence.

Key Takeaways

  • The Shopify Crave theme supports food startup Shopify merchants by offering a gridded layout, abundant digital real estate for product promotion, and templates designed for showcasing your brand effectively.
  • The key features of the Shopify Crave theme include a drag-and-drop page builder, web elements and sections for easy customization, and the ability to create different custom pages without coding.

What Is Shopify Crave Theme?

The Shopify Crave Theme is a free Shopify theme designed especially for food startups, catering services, and restaurants. This theme offers an enticing, visually appealing vibe perfect for showcasing food products and services.

What Is Shopify Crave Theme?

The vibe of the Crave Theme is warm, welcoming, and appetizing. Its high-quality image capabilities allow you to showcase your food in all its glory, creating a visual feast for your visitors. The design enhances your store’s appearance by focusing on what’s most important: the delicious food. This food-centric design can go a long way in enticing customers, thereby increasing sales for your food startup.

Its key features include a clean food-focused design, customization options, Mega menu for presentation, quick buy for fast order, and more 

7 Features That Make Crave Perfect For Food Startups

High-resolution images & Video For Visual Storytelling

High-resolution images & Video For Visual Storytelling

In the food industry, the visual appeal of the products plays a vital role in attracting customers. High-resolution images and videos can capture the food’s vivid colors, textures, and details, making it look more appetizing and appealing to potential customers.

By showcasing high-resolution images or videos, food startups can effectively present their products in the most visually enticing way. This can stimulate customers’ senses and create a desire for the product. The vividness and clarity of the visuals can give customers a close-to-real experience, encouraging them to make an order.

Clear and detailed visuals look appealing and improve the overall user experience. Customers can get a better understanding of what they are purchasing, leading to higher satisfaction rates and fewer returns or complaints.

High-quality visuals can also aid in brand storytelling. Food startups can use images and videos to share their journey, highlight the quality of their ingredients, demonstrate their preparation process, or convey their commitment to health and wellness. This helps build a strong connection with the audience and foster trust in the brand.

Mega Menu

Mega Menu

A mega menu allows you to categorize your food products or offerings effectively. You can separate categories for ‘Vegetarian,’ ‘Non-Vegetarian,’ ‘Vegan,’ ‘Gluten-Free,’ and so on. This structured approach makes it easy for customers to navigate and find exactly what they’re looking for, enhancing their overall shopping experience.

With a mega menu, you can highlight new dishes and products or feature special offers, promotions, or discounts prominently. This is crucial for food startups who may regularly innovate and introduce new culinary offerings. You can draw immediate attention to your latest food creations by showcasing these items on the mega menu. 

Cross-selling allows startups to suggest complementary products to their customers, which can increase the overall value of each order. For example, if a customer purchases gourmet cheese from your store, a cross-selling feature might suggest adding a bottle of wine that pairs well with the cheese or specialty crackers that enhance the cheese-tasting experience. This increases sales and enhances the customer’s overall experience with your products.

The Recommended Products feature analyzes your customers’ purchase history and browsing patterns to suggest products they might be interested in. For a food startup, this could mean suggesting a new flavor that a customer frequently buys or recommending a newly launched product that aligns with their taste preferences. This personalized shopping experience can result in increased customer satisfaction and repeat business.

Quick Buy

Quick Buy

Quick Buy is a handy feature for Shopify food startups. The Quick Buy button simplifies the purchasing process by allowing customers to add items directly to their cart without navigating to the product page. The Quick Buy feature can handle high traffic volumes during peak shopping or promotional events without slowing down the purchase process. This saves time and makes the shopping experience smoother and quicker, reducing the chance of cart abandonment. 

Food items, especially snacks and drinks, are often bought impulsively. The Quick Buy feature plays into this consumer behavior by making it easy for customers to add items to their cart with just one click.

Rich Information (Product info, shipping info, usage info)

Rich Information (Product info, shipping info, usage info)

This is one of the most crucial features for food startups. Shopify Crave theme allows you to provide comprehensive information about each food item you offer, including its ingredients, nutritional content, sourcing information, preparation time, shelf life, and more. This can help customers make informed purchases, fostering trust in your brand.

The theme also allows you to display accurate and detailed shipping information for each product. This includes the expected delivery date, shipping methods available, cost of shipping, and any special shipping instructions or restrictions (like perishable items requiring cold shipping). For a food startup, precise shipping information is essential due to the time-sensitive nature of food products.

The rich information feature is especially important for startups selling unique or uncommon food products. This theme allows you to include usage instructions or serving suggestions for each product. For example, if you’re selling a special spice or condiment, you can suggest recipes or food pairings. This can enhance the customer experience and encourage repeat purchases.

Products Reviews

Products Reviews

Product reviews offer social proof, which can greatly influence potential customers’ decision-making process. When new customers see positive reviews from previous buyers, it helps build credibility and trust in your brand and products.

Reviews provide startups with direct feedback from their customers. This insight can be invaluable to improving products, adjusting pricing, or even developing new offerings.

Promotion banners

With the Shopify Crave Theme, you can create eye-catching promotion banners to highlight special offers, discounts, or seasonal menus. This draws attention to your promotions and encourages customers to take advantage of the limited-time deals, boosting sales for your food startup.

Shopify Crave Theme: Pros and Cons

The Shopify Crave theme has several pros; however, there are also some cons to consider.

ProsCons
  • Highly effective and conversion-friendly design
  • Customer support provided by Shopify
  • Free to use
  • Highly rated by users
  • Advanced features

 

  • Lack of features such as breadcrumbs, promotional sections, and multiple layout options

 

Who Should Use Shopify Crave Theme?

The Crave theme is best for

  • Food trucks, local food stall businesses, and small casual dining restaurants need an online store to attract customers to their physical locations.
  • Beauty and cosmetics stores that are looking to enhance their store’s online presence with a clean and minimalistic design.

What Do Users Say About The Shopify Crave Theme?

The Shopify Crave theme has mixed feedback from users:

Positive Feedback:

  • A few users find the Crave theme “cool and awesome,” recommending it for its aesthetic appeal and functionality.
  • Some specific features of the theme are good.

Shop On In: “I believe this theme might be it for me. I love it! It is fantastic, clean, professional-looking, and it is worth it! I am so impressed with the 2.0 themes. If you’d like, come check out my fashion store for women at www.shoponin.com.”

1MoreToy: “Cool and awasome theme. Recommended!”

Neutral and Negative Feedback:

  • Users have reported some issues, ranging from difficulties with dropdowns on product detail pages to problems displaying different nutritional information for products.
  • Some find challenges with customization, such as enabling stock visibility and adjusting images for different devices.
  • Users have expressed a desire for more tutorials and support to navigate the complexities of the theme.

3 Successful Store Examples Using The Shopify Crave Theme

Mountain Archery

Successful Store Examples Using The Shopify Crave Theme

Mountain Archery is a brand that equips the archery and hunting community with top-tier gear. Using the Shopify Crave theme, the store showcases an organized and user-friendly design.

The homepage greets visitors with clear, vibrant images of featured products and sales, ensuring that users are immediately aware of the latest deals and offerings. The navigation is straightforward, with well-defined categories and an intuitive layout that makes browsing products a smooth experience.

MessyNessyChic

Successful Store Examples Using The Shopify Crave Theme

MessyNessyChic is a brand that brings a unique collection of books and collectibles, focusing on the quirky, hidden, and forgotten treasures of the world. Their online store, which uses the Shopify Crave theme, offers an immersive shopping experience.

The store design is engaging and reflects the brand’s unique personality, emphasizing travel and discovery. The layout is user-friendly and visually pleasing, featuring various products from guidebooks to stylish apparel and journals. Each product is showcased with vivid imagery and detailed descriptions, inviting users to dive deeper.

Navigation is straightforward, making it easy for customers to browse categories, view products, and purchase.

Muscles and Donuts

Successful Store Examples Using The Shopify Crave Theme

Muscles and Donuts is a vibrant and playful brand that merges fitness enthusiasm with a love for sweet treats. Their online store, powered by the Shopify Crave theme, reflects this unique blend through a fun and engaging store design.

The store’s design captures the brand’s spirit with bright colors and dynamic layouts, showcasing their apparel and accessories in a way that’s both eye-catching and easy to navigate.

Customers can easily explore various collections, such as the Foodie Collection or the Donut Collection, with the theme’s well-organized menus and intuitive interface. The site’s responsive design ensures a seamless experience across all devices, whether shoppers are using a desktop or mobile.

How To Try And Publish Shopify Crave Theme?

How To Try And Publish Shopify Crave Theme?

To try and publish the Shopify Crave theme, follow these step-by-step instructions:

1.  Try the theme:

  • To try Crave from the Shopify Theme Store, visit the Themes section in your Shopify admin and click Try theme.
  • After uploading, the theme will be added to your Theme library.

2. Publishing the Theme:

  • From your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
  • In the Theme library section, find the Crave theme and click Publish.
  • Once published, the Crave theme will be what customers see when they visit your online store.

Which Shopify Theme Is Better: Crave or Taste?

When comparing the Crave and Taste themes, Crave offers a vibrant and playful design, while Taste features a spacious design ideal for specialty products and bold branding.

User reviews and ratings show that Crave has received mixed feedback, with 12% positive, 2 neutral, and 5 negative reviews. On the other hand, Taste has a higher percentage of positive reviews, with 67% positive and 1 neutral review. 

Both Crave and Taste are free themes, providing accessible options for Shopify merchants. The choice between Crave and Taste depends on individual preferences, as Crave is optimized for on-the-go buyers with its mobile-optimized layout, while Taste emphasizes showcasing product quality and offers customization options to match your brand vision.

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Shopify Crave Theme: FAQs

Yes, Crave is a good Shopify theme. It is designed with a specific focus on food-related businesses and startups. The theme offers features such as product reviews, easy navigation, and high-quality visuals that can be perfect for showcasing food products.
Furthermore, Crave offers seamless integration with various Shopify functionalities, enabling businesses to optimize their online store with necessary features like secure payment gateways, inventory management, and customer support. It can help food startups to provide an enhanced shopping experience to their customers, which can lead to higher customer satisfaction and potentially increased sales. However, it’s always a good idea to consider your specific business needs and objectives when choosing a Shopify theme.


Yes, you can switch from another theme to the Shopify Crave theme. Here are the steps to do so:
  • Add the Theme to your Library: First, visit the Shopify Theme Store, find the Crave theme and click Try theme to install it.
  • Customize the Theme: Once installed, you can customize the theme according to your preferences. Click on ‘Customize’ next to the Crave theme under the ‘Themes’ tab in your Shopify admin to make changes. Here, you can edit colors, fonts, and layout, add your products, and more.
  • Publish the Theme: When you’re happy with your customizations, click ‘Publish’ to make the Crave theme live on your site.
  • Please note, changing your theme doesn’t delete your products or other content. However, you will need to reconfigure your storefront and reapply any customizations since those are theme-specific. Always make sure to preview and thoroughly test the new theme before publishing it.


Shopify provides documentation and support resources for their themes, including the Crave theme. You can explore the Shopify Help Center and official documentation for instructions, tutorials, and troubleshooting guides specific to the Crave theme.


Shopify’s support team can assist you with general inquiries and technical issues related to the Crave theme. They can provide guidance on theme setup, customization options, and troubleshooting. However, for advanced customizations or in-depth development assistance, you may consider consulting a Shopify Expert.


The decision to use Crave or explore other paid Shopify themes depends on your budget, feature requirements, and design preferences. While Crave offers a range of features and customization options, paid themes may provide additional functionalities and unique designs. It is recommended to evaluate different themes, compare their features, and consider your specific business needs before making a decision.

Ending Words

For food startups looking to establish a strong online presence, the Shopify Crave Theme offers a comprehensive solution. Take advantage of this theme’s capabilities and watch your food startup thrive in the digital world.

Sam
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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.