How to Write a Restaurant Review to Promote Your Food Business

Writing a detailed restaurant review for a newspaper ad or blog can be an effective way to let potential customers know about your food business and what they can expect upon visiting you. Writing your own review might feel a bit strange at first, but fear not. I’ll provide a couple of tips and tricks on how to write a restaurant review that will highlight the best your restaurant has to offer.

How to Write a Restaurant Review: 10 Useful Tips

1. Set the stage for the restaurant experience

To start, you need to set the mood for what people should expect at your establishment. In just a few words, describe the ambiance and your friendly yet professional staff.

If your restaurant has an interesting origin story, share that as well. Is it a family-owned business? Did the idea come to you while traveling through Italy and experiencing their food? Any information that relates to the authenticity of a restaurant is a great selling point.

2. Describe your dishes

Next comes the piece de resistance, which will always be your food. Since you won’t have enough space to talk about the entire menu, choose to highlight your best-selling dishes and the reason why they’re so popular.

Use plenty of powerful, descriptive words that will make customers hungry. For example, chicken can be crisp, succulent, or tender, while beef can be aged, lean, or grass-fed.

Download our ebook on Food Descriptions That Make You Hungry for more secrets on writing a restaurant menu.

If you need additional help writing the review, you can use an AI rewording tool that can help you write compelling content quickly.

3. Add appealing food images

Words may make your customers drool, but a picture is worth a thousand words, especially when it comes to photos of food. You can’t learn how to write a restaurant review before understanding the importance of food photography for restaurant marketing.

Add at least two pictures of your dishes in the review to give customers a taste of what they can enjoy at your restaurant. Whatever you do, though, don’t ever use stock photos.

You want to be as genuine as possible, and that includes actual images of your food. Hire a professional to take some photos that you can also use in other marketing efforts.

4. Talk about the services you offer

Another highly relevant aspect of any restaurant review is mentioning your services, so people get their information straight from the source.

Are you accepting table reservations on your website? Do you also offer food takeaway and delivery? These are things potential customers should be aware of.

Write clearly in an active voice and avoid using market jargon. You can also get help from a paraphraser which will automatically simplify your writing for customers while keeping the original meaning intact.

Especially now, because of the pandemic, people appreciate their favorite restaurants offering order fulfillment options like no-contact delivery or curbside pickup. If you have them, advertise them.

You might also like: 10 Restaurant Review Sites You Need to Be on Right Now

5. Briefly describe your target audience

It’s advisable to also include a few words about what type of customers you’re targeting. That is so that people can figure out whether your restaurant is a good fit for them or not. Answer these questions in your review:

• Is your restaurant family-friendly?
• Do you allow smoking?
• Do you serve alcoholic beverages?
• Is your restaurant pet-friendly?
• What is the price range customers should expect?
• Is your restaurant suitable for large groups or parties?

6. Talk about current promotions

Since everyone enjoys getting discounts and special offers, let them know about your current promos. If you want to, you can even include a special discount coupon code redeemable only for people who see the review.

Having a promo that’s unique to your restaurant can also help. For example, you can assign a day of the week in which you create an appealing promotion, like Curry Fridays.

If you need inspiration for creating restaurant promotions, you can look at our ideas here.

7. Mention a new dish launch

One way to make your review stand out is to launch it for a special occasion like a new menu item release. Let customers know about the day when you plan to launch the new dish and create a bit of buzz around that event.

You can also share a photo as a sneak peek and even launch a limited-time promotion for this new menu item.

8. Share your social media handles

Suppose you have a beautiful Instagrammable account or stellar communication with your customers on Facebook. In that case, you want other people to see that too. Don’t forget to let readers know where they can find you on social media.

Encourage them to like and follow your pages to get exclusive information on the latest deals, access to contests and giveaways, and tips and tricks from your chef.

9. Include relevant contact information

Listing your contact information in a restaurant review is a no-brainer. Vital information like your address, virtual phone number, opening hours, and professional website will help customers learn when and how they can reach you.

If you collect and showcase reviews on your restaurant website, invite people to leave their own if they’ve enjoyed eating at your restaurant.

10. Be honest

The most important thing you need to know about writing a restaurant review is that honesty goes a long way. Even if you are reviewing your own restaurant, and your goal is to attract customers, be honest and only speak highly of the things you really do well.

Lying about being family-friendly, for example, will be short-lived. It might also lead to negative reviews as soon as people visit your restaurant and see that that’s not true.

Customers will appreciate you being genuine, and if you deliver on what you promise, they are bound to come back for more.

Conclusion

The key to writing an excellent restaurant review for promotional purposes is to highlight the things you do well and set you apart from the competition.

That, coupled with mouth-watering photos of your food and detailed information about what customers can experience at your restaurant, will definitely win over some new patrons.

I hope you now have a clearer idea of how to write a restaurant review that sells. If you have other suggestions of things to include in a restaurant review, let me know. I’d love to hear from you.