How do I add my restaurant menu to Google Maps?

Open your Business Profile and select Edit menu. You can add sections and items with descriptions and prices, upload menu photos or a PDF, or let an experimental tool turn a menu photo into a detailed menu. Google's help page says changes can take 24 to 48 hours to appear on Maps and Search. Keep the same prices on your website's menu page.

Can my Google menu link point to a delivery app?

No. Google's Business Profile guidelines say menu addresses can't be direct links to third-party ordering or delivery services. Link the menu to the menu page on your own website, and add delivery providers through the food ordering section of the profile, where you can choose a preferred provider for pickup and for delivery and remove providers you no longer use.

Why does Google show an old menu for my restaurant?

Google may have found several menu sources, such as customer photos, a third-party site and your website. Its help page says the Menu tab then shows each option with the date it was last updated, and you can select your preferred menu. Google may also copy menu data from your website, so update the menu page there first.

Which hours should a restaurant with dine-in and delivery show on Google?

Show dine-in hours as the main hours. Google's guidelines say restaurants should use the hours when diners can sit down and dine, then takeout hours, then drive-through hours, and delivery hours only as a last resort. Add delivery, takeout and pickup times separately as more hours, which Google's restaurant guide describes for specific services.

How do I remove a delivery company from my restaurant's Google profile?

In the food ordering section of your Business Profile, select the provider and choose Remove link. Google's help page says that once a business makes a request, providers must remove third-party links within 5 business days, and that you can report a violation if a provider does not. Providers that state an authorized relationship with you are listed automatically, so check the list after each change.

How does a restaurant appear in Google's Top Places List?

By being chosen by independent writers. Google's page says it might show the online lists that mention your business, such as a list of the top restaurants in a city, if the lists are curated by the content provider, genuine, independent and not sponsored. The lists come from writers who choose the restaurants themselves, so the way in is good food, good service and a profile that makes you easy to find and describe.

Should a restaurant use Event structured data for live music nights?

Only for real, dated events. Google's event guide says events must take place in a physical location and be bookable to the general public, and it asks sites not to mark business hours or coupons as events. A ticketed jazz dinner on a set date fits; a weekly happy hour or a discount night is part of your hours or your offers.

Does my restaurant have to show calories on its menu?

The Food and Drug Administration's menu labeling rules apply to restaurants that are part of a chain with 20 or more locations doing business under the same name and offering largely the same menu items. Those establishments must disclose calories for standard items on menus and menu boards. An independent restaurant with fewer locations falls outside that rule, though state or city rules may differ.

Can customers change the dish names on my Google menu?

Customers can add photos and names of dishes, and they can suggest edits. Google's help page says dish names added by you get precedence over dish names added by customers, and that you can flag a dish name as incorrect, offensive or not served at your restaurant. Check the dishes on your profile each month and correct any that are wrong.

Does a booking button on Google cost the restaurant money?

It can. Google's help page on bookings says that when you book through Google, your provider might charge you, so check the provider's terms. Booking providers appear on your Business Profile within a week of sign-up. You can also add your own reservation link, and Google allows up to 10 links per category.

How does a restaurant become the answer when diners ask Google, Maps or an assistant where to eat?

Which questions diners ask before they choose, which answer places a restaurant meets, how the menu, the hours and the ordering and booking links reach Google, which structured data fits, and which rules limit what a restaurant may claim.

See if customers can find you

A restaurant becomes the answer by keeping the facts diners check before they go (the full menu with prices, the dine-in hours, the ordering and booking links, the cuisine and the address) the same on its Business Profile and on its own website, with the menu written as text on the site so that Google can read it. Google's menu help page says Google may transcribe menu data from your business website so that it appears accurately on your Business Profile, and Google's guidelines ask a restaurant to give the hours when diners can sit down and dine in your restaurant.

Which questions do diners ask before they choose a restaurant?

Diners ask quick, concrete questions, and many of them are about right now. Is it open? Can we get a table for six at eight? Is there something vegan on the menu? Does it deliver to my street? Others are a comparison: where are the best tacos in this neighborhood? A diner who is hungry now wants the whole answer in one place, so the answer has to be complete where the question is asked.

Licheo wrote the questions below on 17 October 2026 as an illustration, with no search figures. The third column shows where the answer comes from. You will notice that most answers come from the Business Profile, and that the profile can take some of its content, such as the menu, from your website.

Diner questions and where the answer comes from: written by Licheo on 17 October 2026 as an illustration, with no search counts.
Question a diner might ask	Type	Where the answer comes from
italian restaurant open late near me	Now	Dine-in hours on the Business Profile, matching the website
can I book a table for 6 tonight	Now	The booking button on the profile and a reservations line on the site
vegan options at [restaurant name]	Check	The menu as text, with dishes labelled
does [restaurant name] deliver	Now	The food ordering links on the profile
best tacos in [neighborhood]	Compare	Reviews, photos and any independent Top Places lists that mention you
live music dinner friday [city]	Plan	An event page for each evening, with date, time and booking
is [restaurant name] good for a large group	Check	Profile details and a groups or private dining page

Which answer places matter most for a restaurant?

For a restaurant, answer engine optimization (AEO) means that when a diner asks Google, Maps or an assistant, the facts in the answer come from you. Here the Google Business Profile (the free listing in Google Maps and Search) is the main answer place, because it carries the menu, the hours, the photos and the buttons to order and book. Google's own setup guide for restaurants names the numbers it suggests a restaurant should watch: searches, menu clicks (the number of clicks on your menu content per user per day) and completed bookings.

A second answer place exists only for businesses with a physical location. Google's page on the Top Places List says that if your business is mentioned in any "top places" lists online, Google might show a rich result that shows the lists that mention your business, and it gives the example of a restaurant that appears in a "Top 10 Chinese restaurants in NYC" list. The feature is only for businesses with a physical location, and the lists must be curated by the content provider, be genuine, independent, and not sponsored. The way into this answer is a mention by writers who choose the restaurant on their own.

The third answer place is the answer in Google's AI features and in assistants. A diner may ask one of them a question that only your menu can answer, such as whether a dish contains nuts, so a full, current menu in text serves those answers as well.

How should the menu appear on Google?

Google offers three ways to show a menu, and a restaurant can use all of them. The first is the menu editor in the Business Profile, which Google's help page says lets restaurants list items with descriptions and prices, grouped into sections such as appetizers, desserts, and main courses. Changes can take 24 to 48 hours to display on Google Maps and Search. Google also offers an experimental tool that turns a photo or PDF of your menu into a detailed menu, provided the full menu fits on one page and in one photo; check every price it reads before you publish.

The second is a single menu link, which Google's page on business links allows alongside the other links. The third is menu photos, which customers can add as well; when a customer's menu photo is out of date, Google's help page suggests flagging it for removal and uploading a new, accurate photo yourself. When Google finds several menu sources, it shows them in the Menu tab with the date each was last updated, and you can select your preferred one.

Google's guidelines then set rules for any menu. It must be the complete set of food and drink items that are available at the business, sample menus that only list "popular items" should not be submitted, and menu addresses (URLs) can't be direct links to third-party ordering or delivery services. Dish names have their own rule: both you and your customers can add photos and names of dishes, but dish names added by you will get precedence over dish names added by customers.

Why should the menu on your own website be written as text?

Because Google reads it. The menu editor page says that Google may transcribe menu data from your business website so that it appears accurately on your Business Profile, and that you can opt out of that transcription if you prefer. A menu written as text on the website, with each dish, its description and its price, gives Google one clear source to copy, and the same text answers a diner who asks an assistant whether a dish contains nuts or whether there is a vegetarian main course.

Let's say a trattoria changes its dinner menu every season. If the new menu goes on the website as text on the day it changes, with the date at the top, Google has a current source to copy and the reader can see that the menu is current. Keep the prices on the website and in the menu editor the same; two different prices for the same dish leave the diner unsure which one is true.

One menu page per menu (lunch, dinner, drinks), each linked from the main menu page.
Each dish as text: name, short description, price, and labels such as vegetarian or contains nuts.
The date of the last change at the top of the page.
The same prices in the Business Profile menu editor.

How do ordering and booking buttons get onto the profile?

Google's restaurant setup guide names two services: Order with Google, for food orders through the Business Profile, and Reserve with Google, to manage your bookings and waitlists directly on Google. For ordering, Google's help page says that third-party providers who state they have authorized relationships with your business are automatically listed on your profile, that you can set a preferred provider for pickup and for delivery, and that once a business makes a request, providers must remove third-party links from a profile within 5 business days. Turning off "Accept orders on your profile" hides every ordering option and link you added.

For bookings, the help page says your booking providers will show up on your Business Profile within a week of sign-up, and it warns that when you book through Google, your provider might charge you. Waitlists on Google are only available for restaurant businesses and need a third-party provider. A restaurant can also add its own links: the business links page allows up to 10 links per category to help customers make a reservation or place a food order, and lets you mark one link as the business preferred link at the top.

What matters for answers is that every button leads somewhere that works and says the same thing as the website. A booking button that opens a provider the restaurant no longer uses leaves the diner unable to book at all.

Which hours should a restaurant give Google?

Google's guidelines give restaurants their own order of priority: Use the hours when diners can sit down and dine in your restaurant. Otherwise, use takeout hours. If neither of those is possible, use drive-through hours, or, as a last resort, delivery hours. A restaurant that serves dinner until ten but takes delivery orders until eleven therefore gives ten as its main closing time.

The other hours still have a place. Google's restaurant guide says that for specific services such as delivery, takeout, drive through and pickup, you set more hours, and for holidays and special events you set special hours. Our guide to hours on maps and voice explains how special hours work. The website should show the same hours in the same order, dine-in first, so that an assistant reading either source finds one answer.

Which structured data fits a restaurant?

Structured data is code on the page, hidden from diners, that labels each fact for a search engine: this is the menu, this is the cuisine, these are the hours. For a restaurant the type is Restaurant, which Google's local business guide, updated on 8 September 2026, gives as its first example of a specific sub-type. The guide names two properties made for food businesses: menu, for food establishments, the full web address of the menu, and servesCuisine, the type of cuisine the restaurant serves.

Schema.org, the shared vocabulary behind the labels, now prefers a newer name: its Restaurant page lists hasMenu and says it supersedes menu, and it adds acceptsReservations, which can be a yes or no or the address of the booking page. Since Google's guide still documents menu, a restaurant can give the menu address under menu, as Google shows, and keep the visible menu page as the one place where the menu changes first. Google's guide also describes a Restaurant carousel, but says it is currently limited to a small set of restaurant providers.

Events are a separate case. A wine evening or a live music night can carry Event labels, and Google's event guide, updated on 8 September 2026, sets the rules: events must take place in a physical location and be bookable to the general public, and you should not mark business hours or coupons as events. A Friday happy hour every week is opening hours; a ticketed jazz dinner on one date is an event.

Labels for a restaurant page, from Google Search Central's Local business guide (updated 2026-09-08) and Event guide (updated 2026-09-08) and Schema.org's Restaurant page, read on 17 October 2026.
Label	What it holds	What the source says
Restaurant	The type of business	Google asks for the most specific LocalBusiness sub-type possible
menu	The address of the menu page	Google: for food establishments, the full web address of the menu
hasMenu	The menu, as text, structure or address	Schema.org: supersedes menu
servesCuisine	The cuisine	Google: the type of cuisine the restaurant serves
acceptsReservations	Yes, no, or the booking page address	Schema.org: Boolean, an URL, or Yes or No
Event	One dated evening with a booking	Google: physical location, bookable to the general public, no business hours or coupons

Which rules limit what a restaurant may claim online?

The rules that shape a restaurant's pages come mainly from food law and from Google itself. The Food and Drug Administration's menu labeling rules apply to restaurants and similar retail food establishments that are part of a chain with 20 or more locations, and such establishments must disclose the number of calories contained in standard items on menus and menu boards. The agency's page, current as of 13 December 2023, does not say whether a menu on the website counts; a chain should ask the agency or its own adviser.

For an independent restaurant, Google's own rules are the ones to check first. The menu rules above limit what the menu may show and where it may link. The Business Profile guidelines ask that any promotion, marketing, contests, or other giveaways clearly link to the terms of the activity, and that all such promises, given or implied, be kept. Google's Local Services Ads requirements add that the Google Verified badge is currently unavailable for businesses in dining verticals, that the food and beverage category is in a pilot phase in specific regions, and that a restaurant's only verification requirement there is a verified Business Profile. In the end, for a restaurant the profile is the proof.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of AEO by industry. The other parts:

Questions people ask

How do I add my restaurant menu to Google Maps?: Open your Business Profile and select Edit menu. You can add sections and items with descriptions and prices, upload menu photos or a PDF, or let an experimental tool turn a menu photo into a detailed menu. Google's help page says changes can take 24 to 48 hours to appear on Maps and Search. Keep the same prices on your website's menu page.
Can my Google menu link point to a delivery app?: No. Google's Business Profile guidelines say menu addresses can't be direct links to third-party ordering or delivery services. Link the menu to the menu page on your own website, and add delivery providers through the food ordering section of the profile, where you can choose a preferred provider for pickup and for delivery and remove providers you no longer use.
Why does Google show an old menu for my restaurant?: Google may have found several menu sources, such as customer photos, a third-party site and your website. Its help page says the Menu tab then shows each option with the date it was last updated, and you can select your preferred menu. Google may also copy menu data from your website, so update the menu page there first.
Which hours should a restaurant with dine-in and delivery show on Google?: Show dine-in hours as the main hours. Google's guidelines say restaurants should use the hours when diners can sit down and dine, then takeout hours, then drive-through hours, and delivery hours only as a last resort. Add delivery, takeout and pickup times separately as more hours, which Google's restaurant guide describes for specific services.
How do I remove a delivery company from my restaurant's Google profile?: In the food ordering section of your Business Profile, select the provider and choose Remove link. Google's help page says that once a business makes a request, providers must remove third-party links within 5 business days, and that you can report a violation if a provider does not. Providers that state an authorized relationship with you are listed automatically, so check the list after each change.
How does a restaurant appear in Google's Top Places List?: By being chosen by independent writers. Google's page says it might show the online lists that mention your business, such as a list of the top restaurants in a city, if the lists are curated by the content provider, genuine, independent and not sponsored. The lists come from writers who choose the restaurants themselves, so the way in is good food, good service and a profile that makes you easy to find and describe.
Should a restaurant use Event structured data for live music nights?: Only for real, dated events. Google's event guide says events must take place in a physical location and be bookable to the general public, and it asks sites not to mark business hours or coupons as events. A ticketed jazz dinner on a set date fits; a weekly happy hour or a discount night is part of your hours or your offers.
Does my restaurant have to show calories on its menu?: The Food and Drug Administration's menu labeling rules apply to restaurants that are part of a chain with 20 or more locations doing business under the same name and offering largely the same menu items. Those establishments must disclose calories for standard items on menus and menu boards. An independent restaurant with fewer locations falls outside that rule, though state or city rules may differ.
Can customers change the dish names on my Google menu?: Customers can add photos and names of dishes, and they can suggest edits. Google's help page says dish names added by you get precedence over dish names added by customers, and that you can flag a dish name as incorrect, offensive or not served at your restaurant. Check the dishes on your profile each month and correct any that are wrong.
Does a booking button on Google cost the restaurant money?: It can. Google's help page on bookings says that when you book through Google, your provider might charge you, so check the provider's terms. Booking providers appear on your Business Profile within a week of sign-up. You can also add your own reservation link, and Google allows up to 10 links per category.

Sources

Get started with a Business Profile for your restaurant, Google Business Profile Help. Accessed 17 October 2026.
About the menu editor, Google Business Profile Help. Accessed 17 October 2026.
Manage your restaurant's popular dish names, Google Business Profile Help. Accessed 17 October 2026.
Manage online ordering options, Google Business Profile Help. Accessed 17 October 2026.
Set up bookings through a provider, Google Business Profile Help. Accessed 17 October 2026.
Manage your local business links, Google Business Profile Help. Accessed 17 October 2026.
Guidelines for representing your business on Google, Google Business Profile Help. Accessed 17 October 2026.
Top Places List, Google Search Central. Updated 2025-12-10, accessed 17 October 2026.
Local business (LocalBusiness) structured data, Google Search Central. Updated 2026-09-08, accessed 17 October 2026.
Event (Event) structured data, Google Search Central. Updated 2026-09-08, accessed 17 October 2026.
Restaurant, Schema.org. Accessed 17 October 2026.
Menu Labeling Requirements, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Content current as of 13 December 2023, accessed 17 October 2026.
Business screening and verification requirements, United States, Google Local Services Help. Accessed 17 October 2026.

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