AI marketing for restaurants: posts, emails, menus
AI can take the weekly marketing chores off a restaurant: drafting the specials post, the newsletter, the menu descriptions and the holiday announcement in your voice. It works best with your real photos and a few notes from the chef. The food, the room and the final say stay with you.
Talk through your restaurant with the person who builds it
A free 30-minute call. You leave knowing which part of your restaurant to hand to AI first, what we would build, and roughly how long it takes.
Give it the chef’s notes
The weak version of AI marketing is generic copy that could describe any restaurant. The useful version starts with what the chef told you: where the fish came from, why the sauce changed, what the family recipe was.
Send those notes in, get back three captions and a short email, and pick the one that sounds like you.
Plan around the calendar
Mother’s Day, graduation week, the first cold night. A simple calendar the AI works from means the post is ready before the rush starts, not the night before.
Be careful with claims
Do not let a draft call a dish gluten-free, vegan or local unless the kitchen confirmed it. Check ad rules if you promote alcohol.
Keep a running note of what has worked: the caption style your regulars answer, the photo angle that gets saved. The AI can use it to draft the next post, so you stop starting from a blank page each week.
Picture this
Examples of what it can look like. Illustrations, not clients.
Friday at 3 p.m. the chef sends a voice note about the halibut special. Ten minutes later there are three caption options and a story text.
The spring menu launches and every dish gets a two-line description written from the chef’s notes.
A monthly email to regulars announces a wine dinner and goes out after the owner approves it.
The rules that apply, in their own words
“unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful.”
“header information that is materially false or materially misleading.”
Sources
- 15 U.S.C. § 7704 (CAN-SPAM Act): Rules for commercial email: honest headers, opt-out, address.
- FDA Food Code 2022: The model food safety code most states adopt.
- ADA.gov: introduction to the ADA: Accessibility duties for businesses open to the public.
- 15 U.S.C. § 45 (FTC Act, Section 5): The federal ban on unfair or deceptive business practices, ads included.
Talk through your restaurant with the person who builds it
A free 30-minute call. You leave knowing which part of your restaurant to hand to AI first, what we would build, and roughly how long it takes.
Questions
Will it sound like a robot?
Not if you give it your real details and edit it. Generic prompts give generic posts.
Does it make the photos?
Use your own photos of your real food. Made-up images of dishes you do not serve mislead guests.
Can it post for me?
It can schedule posts you have approved. It should not publish new ones on its own.
More jobs AI can take on
What Westward builds for this
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