Google Ads for restaurants: fill tables on the nights that matter and win the catering orders
Most restaurants should not buy “restaurants near me” clicks — the map and reviews do that job. Where ads earn their keep is occasions, catering, private events and specific dishes: searches with a real order behind them, run on the hours and days you need covers, landing on a page that takes the booking.
The map does discovery; ads do occasions and catering
A hungry searcher choosing where to eat tonight uses the map and reviews, and paying for that click rarely beats a strong Google Business Profile. Restaurant ads work in the gaps the map does not fill: occasion searches (“Valentine’s dinner Tacoma”, “private dining room for 20”), catering and events (office lunch catering, wedding rehearsal dinners), dish and cuisine intent (“best pho Renton”, “wood-fired pizza near me”), and slow-night fills where a small budget on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings brings covers you would not otherwise have.
The account has to be scheduled around service — an ad for tonight’s table at 3pm on a closed day is wasted — and it has to land on a page that takes the reservation or the catering enquiry, not a homepage with a PDF menu.
The searches worth paying for — and the ones that waste budget
We build around intent with money behind it: occasions, catering and events first, cuisine and dish terms second, generic “near me” last and only where it pays.
- Occasions: “anniversary dinner Tacoma”, “birthday dinner private room”, “Mother’s Day brunch reservations”
- Catering & events: “office catering Puyallup”, “rehearsal dinner venue”, “private event space for 30”
- Cuisine & dish: “farm to table restaurant Tacoma”, “best brunch Renton”, “wood-fired pizza near me”
- Slow-night fills: “happy hour near me”, “live music restaurant Friday”, “date night dinner” — scheduled to the nights you need
Negative keywords we add on day one
Restaurant terms attract recipe, job and delivery-app searches that never become a table.
recipe · how to make · jobs · hiring · salary · DoorDash · Uber Eats · menu pdf · franchise · for sale · free · calories
| Search type | Example | What the searcher wants | Our response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Occasion | “anniversary dinner Tacoma” | A special table | Occasion page with reservation widget |
| Catering | “office catering Puyallup” | Menus and prices | Catering page with enquiry form |
| Cuisine | “farm to table restaurant Tacoma” | A specific experience | Reservation page, meal-time schedule |
| Discovery | “restaurants near me” | Anywhere good | Map and reviews, not paid clicks |
How we build a restaurant account
Three campaigns: Occasions (reservation-page landing, scheduled in the two weeks before each holiday and always-on for birthdays/anniversaries), Catering & events (office-hours schedule, enquiry-form page with menus and capacities), and Cuisine & slow nights (small budget, meal-time schedule on the nights you need covers, landing on the reservation page). Restaurants with real event space add a Venue campaign. Reservation and enquiry goals are tracked per campaign; calls are tracked with a number that forwards to the host stand.
Meal times, slow nights and the run-up to holidays
Restaurant ads live and die by schedule. Occasion campaigns ramp up ten to fourteen days before each date (Valentine’s, Mother’s Day, graduation weekends, Christmas parties) and stop the day after. Slow-night campaigns run late afternoon and early evening on the days you want to fill, and nowhere else. Catering runs office hours on weekdays. Geography is the radius people will drive for a dinner out — larger for a destination restaurant, tighter for a neighbourhood café.
- Holiday ramps: start ten to fourteen days ahead, stop the day after
- Slow-night windows only — never all day, never on closed days
- Catering on weekday office hours
- Radius sized to how far your guests actually travel
- Reservation, enquiry and call goals tracked separately
What the page behind the ad has to do
Reserve in one tap
A reservation widget above the fold, the phone number beside it, and tonight’s availability if the system supports it.
The room and the plates
Real photos of the dining room, the bar and the food — not stock. Occasion searchers are buying atmosphere.
Occasion pages
A page per occasion you sell: Valentine’s menu, Mother’s Day brunch, holiday parties — with the menu and the booking link.
Catering page
Menus with per-head pricing, minimums, delivery area, lead time and an enquiry form. Office managers decide in two minutes.
Private events
Capacities, layouts, minimum spends, AV, and a request form with dates.
Hours and parking
Clearly, near the top. A missing “open Sunday?” answer sends the searcher elsewhere.
We build or fix landing pages under web design & development; a campaign is only as good as the page it lands on.
From occasion search to reservation
Small budgets, sharply timed
Restaurant campaigns are usually modest and concentrated: a holiday campaign for two weeks, a slow-night budget for a few hours a week, and a steady catering budget where that revenue matters. We judge on cost per reservation and per catering enquiry, and on whether the covers landed on the nights you wanted — which the reservation system can confirm. Budgets rise before holidays and the summer event season and fall back afterwards.
Illustrative budget weighting through the year
Illustrative — not client dataRelative emphasis only — a real plan follows your reservation calendar.
A hypothetical first 90 days
Scenario: a farm-to-table restaurant in Renton with live-music Fridays, a private room for 24, a reservation system, and no ads yet.
install reservation and enquiry tracking, launch a Catering & events campaign with a new enquiry page, and a slow-night campaign for Tuesday–Thursday evenings.
build the private-dining page and a Valentine’s (or next holiday) occasion page; launch the Occasions campaign on a two-week ramp; add negatives from the first month.
compare reservations and enquiries by campaign; keep the slow-night windows that filled tables and cut the ones that did not; plan the next two holiday ramps.
Every number in a real plan comes from your own account data; we do not publish or promise results.
What we report every month
Google Ads questions from restaurants
Should a restaurant run Google Ads at all?
For discovery, usually not — fix the Google Business Profile first. For occasions, catering, private events and slow nights, yes: those searches have a booking behind them and the map does not serve them well.
What about delivery apps?
They own the customer. Ads that land on your own ordering page keep the margin and the data; we exclude app-brand searches from your campaigns.
How small can the budget be?
Small — a slow-night campaign can run on a few hours a week. The point is timing, not volume.
Do you set up the reservation tracking?
Yes, for the common systems; it is the only way to report cost per reservation rather than clicks.
Do you charge a percentage of spend?
No. Flat fee; you own the account.
Get a free Google Ads review for your restaurant
Send us your restaurant name and website. We will tell you whether ads make sense for you at all, and if so which occasions and nights to start with.