Restaurant marketing that fills tables, not app commissions.
Restaurant marketing is the work that gets people through your door on a Tuesday in September, not just on a cruise-ship Saturday. We build the local search presence, the guest list, and the reasons to come back, so your seats fill without renting them from a platform.
What restaurant marketing actually has to do.
Four jobs. That is the whole list. Everything else is noise.
Get found by people already hungry
A visitor lands, opens their phone, and types “best dinner near me.” That search happens a few thousand times a week on a small island. Restaurant marketing makes sure your name is what comes back.
Turn a first visit into a habit
Most restaurants meet a guest once and never hear from them again. A simple list and a reason to return is worth more than any ad you will ever run.
Fill the slow months
High season sells itself. September through November is where owners lose money. That is when locals and repeat guests keep the lights on, and you can only reach them if you built the list first.
Keep more of each check
Delivery apps and reservation platforms take a cut of a guest you often already had. The job is to shift that traffic to channels you own outright.
The restaurant marketing work, in plain English.
This is the actual list we run for a restaurant. No mystery, no buzzwords.
Google, done properly
Your Business Profile with current hours, real photos, a live menu, and the right categories. This is the single biggest lever for a restaurant, and most are leaving it half finished. See Google Business Profile for restaurants.
A site that takes the booking
Fast, readable on a phone, with the menu in text and a reservation button that works. Half your traffic is a visitor standing outside deciding between you and the place next door.
An email and text list you own
Every guest who eats with you is a future Tuesday if you have their email. One note before a slow week books more covers than a month of posting. See restaurant email marketing.
A reason to come back
Not a punch card nobody carries. A simple, honest offer that gets a second visit. We have written up the ones that work in restaurant loyalty program ideas.
Reviews, handled
A steady flow of fresh Google reviews and real replies to the bad ones. It moves your ranking and it moves walk-ins. Start with how to get more Google reviews and how to respond to negative reviews.
Numbers you can read
Covers, repeat guests, and revenue. Not likes. If a number cannot be deposited, it does not go in your report.
What the platforms actually charge a restaurant.
This is why owning your own channels matters. The numbers come straight from the platforms, and most owners are handing over more than they think.
Delivery apps. DoorDash charges restaurants a commission on every delivery order: 15 percent on Basic, 25 percent on Plus, and 30 percent on Premier. Pickup orders are 6 percent on every plan. You can read the whole thing on the DoorDash merchant pricing page. We ran the same math in detail in how much DoorDash charges restaurants.
Reservation platforms. OpenTable runs $149, $299, or $499 a month depending on plan, plus a per-cover fee on any diner who found you through their network: $1.50 a cover on Basic and $1 a cover on Core and Pro. Bookings from your own site are free on Core and Pro. Their plans and pricing page lays it out. If you are picking a system, read OpenTable vs Resy first.
None of that makes the platforms villains. They find you guests you would not have found. The mistake is letting them own the relationship after the first visit.
The math most owners never run.
Island restaurants are a different problem.
Most advice online is written for a restaurant on a city block with a thousand neighbors and steady year-round foot traffic. That is not St. Croix in October, and it is not Tulum in the middle of a rainy week. Three things change the playbook here.
Your audience turns over every week. A visitor arrives Saturday, eats out five times, and leaves. They are not going to find you by walking past for a month. They find you on their phone in the first two hours after landing, or they do not find you at all. That makes your Google listing and your photos close to your entire storefront. Google’s own guide to adding and editing your business information is the baseline, and it is free.
Your season has a cliff, not a slope. Rooms empty out, flights thin, and a restaurant that was turning tables in March is doing 30 covers a night in September. The only thing that softens that is a list of locals and repeat visitors you can actually reach, which has to be built while you are busy.
Word of mouth moves faster and lands harder. On a small island a run of bad reviews spreads through the villa managers, the boat captains, and the front desks within a week. So does a good one. Reviews are not a vanity metric here, they are your distribution.
How we run restaurant marketing.
Four steps, in this order, every time.
- We audit what a hungry stranger actually sees: your Google listing, your site on a phone, your reviews, your menu. Then we show you where the covers are leaking.
- We fix the found-you layer first. Google profile, site speed, menu in real text, a booking button that works on a phone with one bar of signal.
- We build the channels you own. Guest email list, a reason to return, and a simple calendar of what goes out and when.
- You get one report: covers, repeat guests, and revenue. We build it, then we run it.
Want the numbers first? Run your own through the free OTA Commission Calculator we built. Then read how to build a restaurant marketing plan, restaurant marketing strategies, and low-budget restaurant marketing ideas. If your problem is empty seats rather than awareness, start with increasing sales without advertising and cutting no-shows. Margins tight? Run your plates through food cost percentage. And see where we work.
What we do not do.
Worth saying plainly, because most of what gets sold to restaurant owners falls in this list.
We do not run your Instagram. Posting a plate every day is not a growth plan, and it is the first thing an owner gets sold. If social is where your guests actually are, we will tell you what to post and leave the posting with the person who knows your food.
We do not lock you into a year. If the work is not moving covers, you should be able to walk. Long contracts protect the agency, not the kitchen.
We do not report on impressions. Reach is not revenue. You will get covers, repeat guests, and dollars, and if a number cannot be deposited it does not go in the report.
We do not take over your relationships. Your guest list, your Google profile, your site, your domain. All of it stays in your name. If you fire us on a Friday, you still own every channel on Monday.
Questions owners ask about restaurant marketing.
We are busy in season. Why do we need this?
Because in season is not the problem. September to November is. Restaurant marketing done in February is what gives you a list to write to in October. If you wait until the room is empty, you have nothing to send and nobody to send it to.
Do we have to quit the delivery and reservation apps?
No, and we would not tell you to. They are good at putting you in front of someone who has never heard of you. Keep them for discovery. The work is making sure the second visit comes through your door or your own site, where nobody takes a cut.
How long before we see it?
The Google and review work usually moves within weeks because it is mostly cleanup. The email list and repeat-guest side takes a season to build, because you have to collect guests before you can write to them. Anyone promising faster is selling you something.
We are one location with a small team. Is this worth it?
Especially then. One location means every empty table is felt the same week. A few hundred past guests on a list is enough to change a slow Tuesday, and you do not need a marketing department to keep it running once it is set up.
What does it cost?
It depends on what is already working and what has to be built from nothing. A restaurant with a decent site and a live Google profile needs a fraction of the work of one starting cold. We tell you the number after we look, not before, and we will tell you when the honest answer is that you do not need us yet.
Who actually does the work?
The same small team that looked at your restaurant. Nothing gets handed to a junior or offshored after the pitch. That is also why we only take on a handful of properties per island at a time.
Do you work outside the Caribbean?
We work between roughly 18 and 20 degrees North: the US Virgin Islands, the BVI, and the Riviera Maya. We know the seasons, the cruise calendar, and how people actually find a place to eat here.
Stop renting your guests. Own the table.
Send us your restaurant and we will show you exactly what a hungry stranger sees, what it is costing you, and what we would fix first.