Advertising for restaurants works differently than most local business ads — it's tied to dayparts, specials and a menu that changes. Schedule and dayparting let a lunch-rush ad run only when lunch is actually happening, and a happy-hour promo swap in at 4pm without you touching the campaign by hand. Industry templates start you from a working setup for a local restaurant — a new-menu-item push, a slow-Tuesday offer, a grand-opening burst — instead of a blank campaign form. Bookings, calls and store visits are goals the app understands natively, so a campaign optimizing toward "get people to walk in" is set up that way from the start, not repurposed from a generic template built for e-commerce.
Ads and Pixels / Restaurants
Advertising for restaurants that fills tables, not just likes
Advertising for restaurants that runs on your actual calendar: Facebook, Instagram, Google and TikTok ads for a lunch rush, a new menu item or a slow Tuesday, tracked back to bookings, calls and store visits — and turn one of your TVs into a menu board on the side.
One place. Every screen.Explore below
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Advertising for restaurants runs on lunch, dinner and the calendar
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Track it to a table, not just a click
A restaurant's real result is a seated table or a to-go order, and the Results Map is built to show that honestly. A call to the restaurant, a reservation click, or a directions request each carries one of three labels: clicked an ad and traced to the exact ad, platform-reported only (shown separately, not folded into your verified numbers), or verified with no ad touch captured. Call tracking uses a number that swaps per source, so a call that started with a Facebook ad and a call that started with a Google search ring different tracked lines — and both get credited to the exact campaign, not lumped into "phone calls, somehow."
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Groups, franchises and one owner with three locations
Advertising for restaurants rarely means just one address. A franchise or a small group with two or three locations can run each location's advertising with its own radius, its own budget and its own tracked calls, while an owner or a marketing lead sees every location's Results Map from one login — which location's lunch push is actually working, not a blended number that hides an underperforming spot behind a strong one. Menu-board content and promos can be pushed to every location's screen at once, or scheduled differently per location where the menu genuinely differs.
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What we don't do
- We don't run a menu board with no fallback — if the point-of-sale sync drops, the last known menu stays up instead of going blank.
- We won't force screen time to carry paid ads once that ships — hosting is free either way, and selling ad time on your screen will be opt-in, category by category.
- We don't guess a table booking came from an ad without click evidence to back it up.
A little more clarity
Frequently asked questions
Real answers before you make a decision.
Is this the same thing as a digital menu board?
Related but separate. This page covers advertising for restaurants — running paid ads on Facebook, Google, TikTok and more. The menu board is a screen you already own turned into a synced display; see /screens/menu-boards for that in depth.
Can I promote a specific dish or a limited-time item?
Yes — creative and targeting can rotate on a schedule, so a weekend special can run its own ad only while it's on the menu, without you rebuilding the campaign each time.
Do you track reservations made through a third-party app like OpenTable?
A click to a reservation link is tracked to the exact ad the same way any other click is; whether the reservation itself confirms depends on what the reservation provider shares back, which varies by provider.
Does advertising for restaurants here include help with what the ad actually says?
Yes — creative can be uploaded or AI-generated from a brand kit, with real in-app previews before anything launches, so you're not guessing what a food photo or a promo graphic will look like on each network.
How much does the menu-board screen cost if I also want to advertise?
They're priced and sold separately — running ads is part of the Solo or Agency plan; a screen is Host Free (a screen you run yourself, ad time optional) or Host Pro for multiple screens with POS-synced menus. See /pricing for both.
Will a paid ad from another business show up on my menu board without my say-so?
No, and not yet at all — selling screen time to other advertisers is coming, not live today. Once it ships, it'll be opt-in and category-controlled by you — alcohol, competitors and anything you don't approve can be blocked outright, and every local ad on your screen will still need your approval before it airs.
What if I only want social ads and no screen at all?
That's fine — the menu board and screen features are entirely optional. Most restaurants start with ads alone and add a screen later, or never.
We have three locations — do we need three separate accounts?
No — each location can have its own radius, budget and tracked numbers under one account, and reporting can be viewed per location or rolled up across all of them. This is advertising for restaurants built for a small group from the start, not a single-location tool stretched to fit.
Is this advertising for restaurants specifically, or does it work for cafes and food trucks too?
Any food-service business with a location or a schedule — cafes, food trucks, bars — uses the same templates; "restaurant" here just means anyone selling food where a lunch rush or a slow night is a real, trackable pattern.
Your next move
Advertising for restaurants that fills the lunch rush, not just the feed.
Start free and launch a restaurant ad in minutes, or add a menu board when you're ready.