How restaurants and breweries get found on Google and in AI answers

Start with your Google Business Profile

• Make sure you own and manage the profile yourself, not only an agency or a past employee.
• Keep regular hours current, and add special hours for holidays, private events and seasonal changes.
• Pick the categories that describe you best, such as a restaurant category and a brewery category if you are both.
• Add your menu, your website, and your ordering and reservation links if you use them.
• Add recent photos of your food, drinks, space and outside, so guests know what to expect.
• Use posts to share events, new releases and seasonal specials.

Put your menu where people and AI can read it

A menu that only exists as a photo or a PDF is hard for search engines and AI assistants to read, and hard to use on a phone. Put the menu on your website as a normal page with text, and keep it in step with what you actually serve. If your beer list changes often, give it its own page that you can update quickly.

Answer the questions guests ask

A short questions page helps guests decide and gives AI assistants a clear answer to repeat. Common ones:

• Do you take reservations, and how?
• Is there parking, and is the space accessible?
• Are kids or dogs welcome, and where?
• Do you offer options for common dietary needs?
• Can we book the space for a private event, and how do we ask?

Keep your details the same everywhere

Use the same business name, address, phone number and hours on your website, Google, Apple Maps, Bing, Yelp, and your ordering and reservation services. When the details disagree, search engines and assistants are less sure which ones to trust, and guests may show up when you are closed.

Reviews and replies

• Ask every guest the same way, for example on the receipt or a card at the table. Don’t pick only the happy ones, and don’t offer anything in return.
• Reply to reviews, good and bad, in a calm and specific voice.
• Never write reviews for yourself or ask staff to.

Make the website do its job

• Your hours, address, menu and how to order or book should be easy to find on a phone.
• Add structured data for your restaurant, so search engines can read your hours, address and menu link.
• Give private events their own page with a simple inquiry form.
• Keep the site quick to load on a phone, since many guests look you up on the way.