Social media ideas for restaurants

Post ideas by goal

Each of the restaurant social media post ideas below has one clear job. A post with one job is quicker to write and easier for a guest to act on. If you want the wider plan these posts fit into, read our guide to social media marketing for restaurants.

Posts that fill tables

• Tables free tonight. A photo of the dining room and a simple line: "A few tables left from 7pm tonight." Add your booking link or phone number. It's honest and useful, especially midweek.
• The weekday reason to visit. Your lunch menu, an early evening set menu or a midweek special. Show the food, say when it runs and say how to book.
• Book-ahead reminders. Before busy dates such as Mother's Day, Christmas or a bank holiday weekend, post a reminder a few weeks out and again closer to the day.
• Private dining and groups. The room set for a party, how many it seats and how to enquire.
• Something to look forward to. A tasting evening, a guest chef or a seasonal menu, with the date, what's included and how to book.

Posts that show off new dishes

• The reveal. One strong photo of the new dish, what's in it and why the chef put it on.
• From delivery to plate. The ingredient arriving, being prepped and leaving the pass as a finished plate.
• Meet the supplier. Your butcher, grower, fishmonger or baker. If they're on Instagram, invite them as a collaborator: once they accept, the post shows on both profiles and in both sets of followers' feeds.
• Chef's pick. What the chef would order this week, and why.
• Today's specials board. A clear, well-lit photo of the board. Simple, and useful to anyone deciding where to eat.

Posts that introduce the team

• Meet the team. One person, one photo, one question, such as "What's the best thing on the menu right now?"
• A day in the kitchen. Morning prep, the staff meal, the pass at full speed.
• Staff favourites. What the team orders on a night off.
• Milestones. A chef's anniversary or a new team member's first week.

Always ask before you post a photo of someone, and take no for an answer.

Posts that share what guests say

• Real reviews. Screenshot a genuine review or a note left on a table, thank the guest and show the dish they loved. Ask first, or show their first name only, and never edit or invent a review.
• Guest Stories. When someone mentions you in their Instagram Story, it arrives in your messages, and you can usually add it to your own Story unless they've switched reshares off.
• You asked, we listened. If feedback changed something, such as a new vegan dish or earlier Sunday opening, say so.

Good restaurant social media content mixes all four goals across a week. Most of these ideas also work as restaurant Facebook post ideas. One thing to know: Facebook says some Pages can include links in only two organic posts or comments a month, so if yours is limited, save links for your most important posts.

Instagram Stories ideas

Stories disappear after 24 hours unless you save them as a Highlight, which makes them ideal for today's news: tonight's tables, today's specials, what's happening in the kitchen right now. They're also where a lot of the best restaurant Instagram ideas live, because the stickers invite people to join in.

• Poll. "Which dessert should stay on the menu?" People vote and see the results as they come in.
• Quiz. "Guess the secret ingredient in our ragu." People tap an answer and find out whether they were right.
• Questions. "Ask our chef anything." Share the best answers in later Stories. When you share someone's response, their photo and username aren't shown.
• Countdown. Count down to a new menu or an event. People can tap it to set a reminder, and they get a notification when it ends.
• Link. Add a link sticker to "tables tonight" Stories so people can go straight to your booking page.
• Location. Add a location sticker so people can tap through to your location page.
• Add yours. Start a prompt such as "Show us your favourite dish here" and let guests add their own Stories.
• Behind the scenes. The morning delivery, the first plates of service, the team's staff meal.

Then save your most useful Stories as Highlights on your profile, such as Menu, Book, Events, Reviews and Find us. Highlights stay on your profile until you remove them.

If your account is public, the Instagram app can schedule photos, carousels and Reels. For Stories, Meta Business Suite can schedule them to your Facebook Page, your Instagram account or both, and Instagram says eligible accounts can now schedule a story in the app too. Post interactive Stories, such as polls and questions, when someone is around to reply.

Announcing a new menu

A new menu deserves several posts, not one. Here's a simple sequence.

A week or two before

1. Tease it: a close-up of a new ingredient, or the corner of a plate, with "Something new lands next Thursday."
2. Add a countdown sticker to your Stories so followers can set a reminder.
3. Run a poll on which new dish to reveal first.
4. Invite a few regulars to try the dishes early, and ask if you can share their reactions.

Launch day

1. Post the full line-up as a multi-photo post, with every dish named in the caption, plus the dates, whether it's lunch or dinner and how to book.
2. Pin that post to the top of your Instagram profile. You can pin up to three posts.
3. Save your launch Stories to a Menu Highlight.
4. Update the menu everywhere else: your website, your link-in-bio page and your Facebook Page. Don't leave last season's menu online.

The weeks after

1. Give each new dish its own post over the following weeks.
2. Share guests' photos and Stories, with their permission.
3. If your till shows a clear favourite, post a "most ordered so far" update.

Photos and captions that work

Photos

• Use daylight. Shoot near a window rather than under warm dining room lights.
• Shoot flat dishes, such as pizza or sharing boards, from above. Shoot burgers and stacked dishes from the side or at a slight angle.
• Wipe the rim of the plate and clear clutter from the table.
• Include hands and people where you can. A hand tearing bread tells a better story than an empty table.
• Edit lightly. The dish should look the way it does when it reaches the table.

For more on this, read how to take food photos with your phone.

Captions

• Lead with the dish or the news, not "Hello everyone!"
• Say one thing that makes it worth coming for: the local cheese, the slow-cooked sauce, the view from the window table.
• Give one clear next step: book, call, or come in this week.
• Add your location. People who tap it can see your posts, and others tagged there, on the Instagram map.
• Keep hashtags to a few specific, local ones. Instagram allows up to five on a post.
• Write the way you'd talk to a guest at the table.

Here are three examples to adapt:

You'll find caption formulas and more examples in our guide to food and drink captions for Instagram.

Planning a month of posts

If you're short of restaurant content ideas, it's usually because you're deciding what to post on the day. Plan once a month instead.

1. Mark the fixed dates first: menu launches, events, bank holidays and seasonal dates.
2. Drop a weekly pattern around them. Our guide to social media marketing for restaurants has an example week, with the job each post does.
3. Slot in ideas from this guide. Most restaurant Instagram post ideas above fit one of those days, and so do their Facebook versions.
4. Batch the work. Take photos in one quiet afternoon, write captions in one sitting and schedule them.
5. Leave gaps for live moments, such as a surprise delivery, a sunny terrace or a full house.

Pick a rhythm you can keep in your busiest month, not your quietest. Our guide to building a social media content calendar walks through a full template.