If you're a restaurant owner, you already know how challenging the industry can be. According to the National Restaurant Association’s 2024 report on the state of the industry, “45% of operators expect competition to be more intense than last year,” while at the same time, “38% say their restaurants were not profitable last year.”
When you're up against fierce competition, economic inflation, and thin profit margins, you need every advantage you can get to continue operating profitably. That's why it's crucial to make sure your restaurant is active on top review sites, which allows you to:
We'll take a closer look at these benefits in this guide for restaurant owners. We’ll also cover eight of the best restaurant review sites you need to be listed on in 2025, including Yelp, Tripadvisor, and OpenTable. We'll review their key features, explain why they’re important, and discuss how to efficiently manage online restaurant reviews across multiple platforms.
Here are eight of the most popular restaurant review websites and apps to make sure you're listed on in 2025:
Let's kick off with the biggest and most influential platform: Google.
Roughly twice as many people check Google reviews compared to the next leading platform, so creating a listing is crucial if you want to maximize your reach online.
Creating a Google Business Profile allows you to share information about your restaurant, collect Google reviews from your patrons, improve your local search visibility, and help more customers find you on Google Maps.
In addition to basic details like your address and hours, you can market your restaurant by listing various amenities and offerings, like catering services or vegetarian items.
You can also share your menu, provide click-to-call options, and accept orders or reservations, which are crucial features for getting more customers and growing your business.
Before we move onto our next platform, here's an example of a negative review on Google Maps and an effective response from the restaurant owner:
Explore more tips on successful Google review management, or check out Google's guide to getting started with Google Business Profile.
You might also be interested in learning some effective strategies for responding to 1-star reviews.
Not only is Facebook one of the biggest social media platforms, but it's also one of the most highly trusted sources of reviews. In BrightLocal's latest consumer review survey, 48% of respondents said they checked Facebook for reviews in 2024, which is more than any other review site except for Google.
Facebook reviews work differently than most others, with users answering whether or not they would "recommend" the business. You can learn more in our guide to how to ask for customer recommendations on Facebook.
To create a Facebook page for your restaurant, follow Facebook's guide to getting started for business owners.
You might also be interested in these tips from Harvard for responding to negative reviews.
Yelp is another one of the top restaurant review sites, with 44% of consumers using the platform to check reviews in 2024.
Like Google Business Profile, Yelp enables restaurants to add numerous amenities and features that can help draw more customers, such as "accepts credit cards," "offers delivery," "outdoor seating," and others. Yelp also includes tools for placing orders online, which makes creating a Yelp profile an easy way to get more business.
Yelp allows users to leave reviews and ratings on a 1-5 star scale. The positive review and owner response below are perfect examples of how you can leverage positive reviews to grow your business and encourage customer loyalty:
Yelp provides easy-to-follow instructions for creating a Yelp business page.
Although declining in popularity, Tripadvisor continues to rank as the fourth most-used review site by consumers, with 21% of consumers using the site to check reviews in 2024 — still a significant portion, despite being down from 2023 (29%) and 2022 (36%).
You can use your Tripadvisor profile to display your menu and share details about your establishment, like whether it offers takeout, whether it's wheelchair-accessible, what styles of cuisine are available, and more.
Tripadvisor allows users to leave written reviews and rate businesses on a scale of 1 to 5 stars.
Users can also rate restaurants in specific areas like food quality, customer service, and overall value, which contributes to your total score.
Foursquare, which is technically called Foursquare City Guide, is a social networking site based on the user's location. It currently has around 50 to 55 million active users.
According to Semrush, around 33 million users visit the site each month, with most visitors coming from Google organic search.
According to a notice on the Foursquare website, "The City Guide app will be sunsetting on December 15, 2024, with the web version to follow in early 2025." But does that mean you should ignore the platform? Definitely not.
As the site's FAQ page explains, "Business listings currently appear in both City Guide and Swarm," which is another Foursquare app. "Your business will remain discoverable on our Swarm app. We also distribute listings to our large-scale partners, as we are a major provider of Places data."
List your business on Foursquare to get started using the platform.
AllergyEats describes itself as “the leading guide to allergy-friendly restaurants nationwide.”
According to the platform’s website, restaurants can boost profits by up to 25% and increase customer loyalty by up to 40% by becoming allergy-friendly, providing some compelling reasons to consider making the shift toward more allergy-friendly menu offerings.
Learn more about getting started with AllergyEats for restaurateurs.
HappyCow is a restaurant review platform dedicated to showcasing vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants.
The platform enables businesses to display basic information, like their website and contact information, along with some additional details and notices from the owner.
For example, in the screenshot below, the owner highlights some menu items and provides information concerning outdoor seating.
Each restaurant's profile on HappyCow highlights a "featured review," like the example pictured below.
Additional reviews are listed beneath the featured review, providing visitors with more insights about your restaurant.
To list your vegan-friendly restaurant on HappyCow, you'll need to become a member. You can take the first steps here.
OpenTable is a multi-purpose restaurant reservation and review platform where users can “book online, read restaurant reviews from diners, and earn points towards free meals.”
Visitors can order takeout or delivery directly on your OpenTable page, making this platform an essential tool to drive profits and boost business.
You can add various details to your restaurant page on OpenTable, like the typical price range, what sorts of cuisines you serve, what payments you accept, what your dress code is like, and more.
OpenTable users can rate and review restaurants from 1 to 5 stars, which includes individual ratings for specific aspects of the dining experience, such as food quality, quality of service, and the restaurant’s ambiance.
Learn more about how to get started using OpenTable for restaurant businesses.
Now that we've covered eight leading review platforms, let's take a closer look at why you need to be listed on them.
"To improve your business’s local ranking, use Google Business Profile to claim and update your business information", Google suggests in one of their help guides.
The guide continues, "Respond to reviews that users leave about your business. [...] High-quality, positive reviews from your customers can improve your business visibility and increase the likelihood that a shopper will visit your location."
In a 2024 survey by BrightLocal, 54% of respondents said they would be more likely to use a business that responded to its positive reviews, while 58% said the same about negative reviews.
By comparison, 88% said they would be willing to use a business that responded to all reviews. However, that percentage dropped to just 47% for businesses that never responded to reviews.
Authentic user reviews and ratings are examples of user-generated content, or UGC.
Why is that important? According to research by TINT, consumers trust UGC more than branded content, which is any content developed by your own team, as well as promotional content created by influencers. That means positive reviews and high star ratings are some of your most powerful tools for convincing potential customers to try your restaurant.
Not only do customers trust reviews over advertisements, but they also distrust businesses that have too few reviews.
According to BrightLocal, 31% of consumers expect businesses to have at least 20 to 49 reviews before they’re willing to try them. Another 28% expect an even higher amount (50 to 99 reviews), while 15% expect more than 100 reviews.
Most review site listings include areas for restaurants to add special features, amenities, and other unique details that could help draw in customers — for example, saying that you have outdoor seating or accept Apple Pay as a payment method.
Additionally, many review sites include tools for placing orders or booking tables. These tools drive growth by creating an easy, frictionless way for people to make reservations, schedule pick-ups, or get deliveries.
Shout About Us is an AI-powered review management platform designed for multi-location businesses in the food and beverage industry, like fast food chains, restaurant franchises, and large catering services. We have more than a decade of experience managing online reviews for clients like Chick-fil-A, Jersey Mike's Subs, and Breakfast Republic to build you a reputation marketing campaign that gets traffic flowing and drives growth for your restaurant.
Shout About Us gives you custom solutions tailored to meet your review management needs. Choose the strategy that's right for you, like ReviewNavigator, ReviewNavigator Plus, or ResponseScribe.
ReviewNavigator is an all-in-one review management platform that helps you streamline and automate tasks like review monitoring, review collection, review removal, and social posting. Key features of ReviewNavigator include:
Make your customers feel heard with ResponseScribe, a done-for-you review response service that provides your reviewers with fast, friendly, personalized replies on 75+ sites and apps — all from one convenient dashboard.
ResponseScribe gives you multiple ways to generate on-brand, retention-focused replies to customer feedback. Choose the review response strategy that's right for your team:
We craft every response to match your brand voice and messaging. Build a response template library, request response revisions with a single tap or click, and set custom text or email notifications to alert you when responses are ready.
ReviewNavigator Plus integrates all the tools and features of ReviewNavigator with the capabilities of ResponseScribe, combining to create our most comprehensive and powerful review management solution.
Book more tables, take more orders, and generate more profits with an AI-powered review management strategy tailored to your needs. Schedule a demo today to explore how Shout About Us can support your restaurant or bar.
Done-for-you review management
built for local businesses.
