Local SEO for restaurants, cafés, bars and hotels

For a restaurant, café or hotel, the Google profile can carry most of what a guest checks before choosing: the menu, photos, opening hours, popular times and reviews. Whether a guest sees that profile at all depends on details that are easy to miss. 'Open now' filters by your hours, a search for a dish or an occasion can show a different set of places, and when a visitor asks ChatGPT for a recommendation, the answer can draw on review sites such as Yelp, whose listings and reviews OpenAI licenses. SearchOps shows where your venue appears for those searches, at the hours guests decide, and what AI answers recommend.

  • Google Maps visibility at the hours guests are deciding
  • Searches by cuisine, occasion and dish, not just 'restaurants near me'
  • What ChatGPT and Gemini recommend when visitors ask where to go
  • Google reviews in one feed, and Tripadvisor on Pro and above

The problem

The same street can have a different winner at lunch and at dinner

Hospitality visibility moves with the clock and with what people are hungry for. Opening hours decide whether you appear for 'open now' searches, the places shown for 'brunch' can differ from those shown for 'cocktail bar', and a hotel competes for 'hotel near the station' and 'hotel with parking' as separate searches. Once a guest finds you, the profile does the persuading, so the menu, photos and recent reviews have to be right.

01

A menu added with the Business Profile menu editor shows under 'Menu' on your profile, so the dishes are there when a guest checks.

02

Restaurants and hotels can have reviews on Google and Tripadvisor, and AI answers can cite either.

03

Whether a venue is open can affect what Google shows, so a check at midnight may not match what a guest sees at dinner time.

04

In a group, one busy venue can mask a quiet one, so each site's visibility and rating needs reading on its own.

Questions SearchOps answers

What owners and hospitality marketers need to know

Five questions tell you whether new guests can find your venue, not just your regulars. Each one is answered by data SearchOps collects.

01Discovery

Do we show up for what people actually search for?

Track the searches that fill tables and rooms, by cuisine, occasion and dish, such as 'sushi near me', 'Sunday roast Clapham', 'birthday dinner downtown' or 'hotel with a pool Cape Town'. Google Search Visibility follows each one through the Map Pack, web results and AI Overviews on desktop and mobile.

Visibility for the searches your guests use

02The map

Where do diners and visitors nearby see us?

Geo-grid scans show your Google Maps position from every point around the venue, from a few streets to a whole city, and can run at the hours guests are deciding, such as 6pm on a Friday. Every point lists the places shown ahead of you.

Your visibility where and when people choose

03Rivals

Which places are people choosing instead?

Map Insights compares you with the venues beating you nearby on categories, ratings and review counts. Competitors keeps one list of rivals, including the ones ChatGPT names, with changes to their profiles over time.

The places to beat, and what sets them apart

Used in this step

04AI answers

What does ChatGPT recommend when visitors ask where to go?

SearchOps asks ChatGPT and Gemini the questions guests ask, like the best place for a family lunch near the harbour or a quiet hotel in the old town, including for situations such as travelling with children or a special occasion. You see how often you're recommended, who is named instead, and the guides and review sites the answers cite.

Your share of AI recommendations, and the sources behind them

05Reviews

What are guests praising, and what are they complaining about?

Google reviews, plus Tripadvisor on Pro and above, arrive in one feed with sentiment grouped by topic, so you can see whether service, value, staff or waiting times move the rating. On a connected Google profile the agent drafts replies for you to check and send.

A clear read on the experience guests describe

Before and after

From the owner's phone to the guest's view

Checking visibility
Without the dataSearching your own name from inside the venue
With SearchOpsScans across the neighbourhood, at the hours guests decide
Specific searches
Without the dataHoping you appear for 'restaurants near me'
With SearchOpsCuisine, occasion and dish searches tracked on Maps, Search and AI Overviews
AI recommendations
Without the dataNo idea what ChatGPT tells visitors
With SearchOpsHow often ChatGPT and Gemini recommend you, and which places they name instead
Reviews across sites
Without the dataChecking Google and Tripadvisor separately, when there's time
With SearchOpsReviews in one feed with sentiment by topic, including Tripadvisor on Pro and above
Profile activity
Without the dataPosting to Google when someone remembers
With SearchOpsUpdates published or scheduled to your profile, with calls and direction requests alongside

Use cases

What venues learn from the data

Illustrative examples from restaurants, bars, cafés and hotels.

Neighbourhood Italian restaurantBrooklyn, New York

Why are we busy at lunch but quiet in the evening?

Scans for 'Italian restaurant near me' run at noon and at 7pm show the restaurant in the top three around the block at lunchtime, and outranked in the evening by two places that stay open later and have more recent reviews. It is a visibility problem at a specific hour, not a problem with the menu.

Boutique hotelEdinburgh, UK

When travellers ask ChatGPT for a hotel near the castle, are we in the answer?

AI visibility checks put questions like 'a quiet boutique hotel near Edinburgh Castle' to ChatGPT and Gemini. The hotel is named in a minority of answers, two rivals appear in most, and the answers draw on travel guides and review sites where the rivals have more coverage. The next step is the sources, not the hotel's own website.

Café group, five sitesMelbourne, Australia

Which of our cafés is dragging the group rating down?

Each café is its own tracked location. Review sentiment by topic shows four sites holding steady and one with a growing share of complaints about waiting times at weekends. The group can fix one site's staffing instead of guessing across all five.

Cocktail barToronto, Canada

Do we show up when people downtown search for a rooftop bar?

Rank tracking for 'rooftop bar Toronto' and a scan across downtown show the bar in the Map Pack within a few blocks and missing further out, where two venues with far more reviews appear. Map Insights compares their categories and review counts with the bar's, so the gap has a likely reason.

Choosing a plan

The right plan for one venue or a group

Plans scale from a single café to a hospitality group, with Tripadvisor reviews and automatic replies from Pro. Every plan includes every tracking tool.

Compare every plan

Starter

For a single restaurant, café or bar

  • 10 tracked locations, including nearby rivals
  • 1 connected Google profile
  • Google reviews in one feed
  • Single user

Pro

For small groups and hotels

  • 50 tracked locations
  • 25 connected Google profiles
  • Tripadvisor and Trustpilot reviews alongside Google
  • Automatic replies to 4 and 5 star Google reviews

Agency

For hospitality groups and their agencies

  • 200 tracked locations
  • 100 connected Google profiles
  • White-label client reports
  • Unlimited team members

FAQ

Restaurants & hospitality. Questions we get

Get the profile exactly right first: the most accurate category for what you serve ('Italian restaurant' rather than 'Restaurant' when that is what you are), a menu added through the menu editor, opening hours including holidays, and recent photos. Then build a steady flow of genuine reviews, which Google names as part of prominence. SearchOps shows where you appear for cuisine, dish and occasion searches across your neighbourhood, and at the hours guests search.

It can. Whether a place is open can affect what Google shows, and 'open now' searches filter by opening hours. Scans can be scheduled for a time you choose, so you can check your visibility at lunch, dinner or late at night.

Yes. Google reviews are included on every plan, and Tripadvisor reviews come into the same feed on Pro and above, with sentiment by topic. Google hasn't said whether other review sites affect its local ranking, but guests read both, and AI answers can cite them.

Yes. SearchOps asks ChatGPT and Gemini the questions guests ask, on a schedule, and shows how often your venue is recommended, who is named instead, and the guides and review sites the answers cite. We report visibility and share of voice rather than a rank, because these answers change from one run to the next.

You can publish update posts to a connected Google profile straight away or schedule them, which suits weekly specials, new dishes and seasonal hours. The agent can draft a post for you to edit before it goes out.

Yes. Each venue is its own tracked location with its own scans, rankings, AI visibility and reviews, and a report can include several venues side by side. Starter tracks up to 10 locations, Pro 50 and Agency 200.

Yes. Delivery apps can appear in web results, but the Map Pack and Google Maps results are made up of venues. SearchOps shows which searches you appear for and what appears ahead of you, so you can see where an app takes the visibility and where your own profile can win.

Start tracking your real rankings today

See where you actually rank on Google Maps, not where Google tells you. Pick the plan that fits and start tracking from day one.