Most Restaurants Are Missing Out on the Platform That Brings Customers In — Here’s What a Google Strategist Recommends

Restaurants don’t need content to succeed. But it makes winning a lot easier.

For years, restaurants competed on location, menu and word of mouth. Now, they also compete for attention. And increasingly, that attention is being earned on YouTube long before a customer ever walks through the door.

Inside Google’s offices in New York City, that shift was impossible to ignore: People are watching content on YouTube before they visit. Farah Shirzadi, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Travel & Local Search at Google, sees YouTube as one of the most powerful tools restaurants have today.

“There are a lot of different ways that you can use YouTube,” Shirzadi says. “You can have your long-form video, you can have YouTube Shorts, you can do YouTube Lives, you can record podcasts like we’re doing right now.”

Restaurants are no longer limited to a single type of content or a single way to connect with guests.

There is a restaurant in London called Fallow that proves the point. Its YouTube channel goes beyond just showing plated dishes. It brings viewers into the kitchen, into the process, into the personalities behind the food. By the time someone books a table, they already feel like they know the place.

“So if there’s a long story that you want to tell or maybe about your chef or maybe the farms that you use and you’re going and picking produce, something that you really want to immerse your viewer in, long form is the perfect way to be,” Shirzadi says.

That is the shift: Restaurants are no longer just places you go. They are brands you experience before you arrive. The first impression has shifted from being the front door to its YouTube videos. And the restaurants that understand that are turning viewers into guests before a reservation is ever made.

Restaurants win on YouTube

If YouTube is where customers form opinions, the next question is: What should restaurants actually do about it?

Start with what you already have. For operators already posting on other platforms, the barrier to entry is lower than it seems. “Get that content that you already have on YouTube,” Shirzadi says.

Don’t reinvent the wheel — It is about showing up consistently and letting the data guide what comes next. And that is where YouTube sets itself apart.

“We love data over here, and so we want you all to also have really strong data behind the videos,” Shirzadi said. From who is watching to how they found you, that information becomes the roadmap. But content alone is not enough — context matters.

“Making sure that within the videos that your metadata is really strong as well, like what is the description, is the title actually accurate about what the video is about,” Shirzadi says.

Those details help connect the right video to the right viewer. That same principle applies to location.

“Make sure that your geolocation tagging is as specific as possible,” Shirzadi says. “If you have multiple restaurant locations, make sure that the one that you’re tagging is the one that’s being featured in the video.”

Small details, big impact. And restaurants do not have to do it alone.

“The one thing we haven’t touched upon is also just the power of working with local creators in your community,” Shirzadi said.

That collaboration brings new perspectives and new audiences. The playbook is not complicated:

• Show up
• Be clear
• Use the tools
• Pay attention to the data

Because on YouTube, the restaurants that win are not the ones chasing views. They are the ones building connections with the right audience, one video at a time.

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