- Owner
- Owner or general manager
- Cadence
- Menu and hours on every change; matrix quarterly
- Time box
- One day to set up
- Output
- Signal matrix, text menu, occasion pages
How diners ask now
"Best Thai food near me" has turned into "Where's a good Thai place in Mountain View that's open late and has vegetarian options?" AI assistants answer that question with two or three names. We help make your restaurant one of them. That is how Bay Area AEO's restaurant page opens, and it describes the shift well. Diners used to type a cuisine and "near me." Now they describe the evening: who is coming, what they like to eat, and the time and place. The assistant answers with two or three names, chosen from restaurants whose menus, hours and reviews it can read and match to the request.
The agency's demo questions for restaurants make a good starting panel because each one carries a condition:
- What's a good restaurant in Palo Alto for a birthday dinner for six people?
- Best date-night restaurant in Oakland's Rockridge neighborhood
- Where can I get authentic Sichuan food in Cupertino?
- Kid-friendly restaurants in San Mateo with outdoor seating
The signal matrix
| Signal | What to publish | Where it must appear | Evidence to file |
|---|---|---|---|
| Menu markup and text menus | We turn PDF and image menus into crawlable pages with dish names, prices and dietary labels, plus Menu and Restaurant schema. | A /menu page in HTML text; Menu and Restaurant markup | Live menu URL; validator result |
| Occasion-ready pages | Short pages for private dining, large groups, happy hour and catering, written to answer the exact questions people ask AI. | One short page each: private dining, large groups, happy hour, catering | Published URLs |
| Reservation and listing sync | Hours, holiday closures, price range and cuisine kept identical across Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing and OpenTable or Resy. | Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing and the reservation platform | Match sheets for all five |
| Press and guide mentions | We pitch you to the Bay Area food lists, neighborhood guides and roundups that AI engines cite most often. | Food lists, neighborhood guides and roundups found in the audit | Target list and outreach log |
| Specific reviews | Customers describe what you do best, in their own words. | Google reviews and replies that name dishes and occasions | Request log; phrase list |
Procedure
- Replace the PDF menu
Publish the menu as text on a page of its own, with dish names, prices and dietary labels such as vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free. Keep the PDF as a download if guests like it.
- Mark it up
Add Restaurant markup with servesCuisine, priceRange and a hasMenu link to the menu page, following the structured data SOP.
- Write the occasion pages
For each occasion the restaurant serves, write a short page: group sizes, how to book, set menus or minimums, and the room or patio.
- Sync the platforms
Make hours, holiday closures, price range and cuisine identical on Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, Bing and OpenTable or Resy.
- Pitch the lists
From the audit, list the food roundups and neighborhood guides assistants cite for the restaurant's city, and pitch the ones that fit.
- Prompt for dishes
Change the review request to invite guests to name the dish they would order again and the occasion.
Hours are the most common miss
Restaurants change hours more than any other kind of business: seasonal schedules, private events, holidays, a kitchen that closes before the bar. An assistant asked for "open late" or "open on Monday" answers from whatever hours it finds, and a single stale listing can send a party of six to a dark door. Set a standing rule that any change to hours goes to the fact sheet first, then to all five platforms the same day, with a line in the change log. Enter holiday closures for the year ahead in January.
Writing an occasion page
Occasion pages are short and practical. A private dining page for a Palo Alto restaurant answers the birthday-dinner question directly: the largest party the room seats, whether there is a set menu, how far ahead to book, and whether there is a minimum. A kid-friendly page for a San Mateo restaurant names the outdoor seating, high chairs and the children's menu. Each page is a passage an assistant can quote when a diner describes that exact evening.
Done when
Say what the kitchen is known for
Diners ask for specifics: authentic Sichuan in Cupertino, a date-night spot in Rockridge, ramen on Castro Street. A restaurant page that says "Asian fusion" leaves an assistant guessing which question it answers. Name the regional cuisine, the dishes regulars order and the style of the room, using the words diners use in reviews. If the chef is known for a dish, that dish belongs on the home page, on the menu page and in the Google profile's description, phrased the same way each time.
Ordering and delivery platforms
Delivery and ordering platforms carry their own copies of the menu and hours. Add each one the restaurant uses to the match sheet and check them when the menu or hours change. A delivery listing with last season's menu is one more source telling an assistant something different from the restaurant's own page.