Notes for owners · Industry playbooks
How to promote a new restaurant
Opening week is about being found, not discounted. The first month is about repeat visits and honest reviews. After week three, most launch offers should stop.
The GullySales team · Updated 15 Sept 2026 · 7 min read
In the opening week a new restaurant needs to be found, not discounted. Get the Maps pin, the timings and the menu right, open the aggregator listings with photographs shot in daylight, and invite the two streets around you to a soft opening. In the first month the job changes to repeat visits and the first honest reviews. After that, take the launch offers off. A discount that runs past week three teaches the neighbourhood to wait for the next one, and the neighbourhood is patient.
Opening week: be findable before you are famous
Most of the people who will keep you alive live or work within two or three kilometres. They are not waiting for a campaign. They are opening Maps at half past eight, hungry, looking for something new.
So the opening week is unglamorous work. Claim the Google Business Profile and put the pin at the door rather than at the junction. Set the real hours, including the kitchen closing time, because a couple who arrive at ten to find the kitchen shut writes about it. Upload photographs taken at the table in daylight, of dishes exactly as you serve them. Put the menu up with prices.
Then tell the immediate area. The security desk at the office block next door, the two large apartment complexes on the same road, the gym, the salon. A card with a QR code for the menu and the opening date does more here than anything digital, because these are the people who can walk over.
The first month: turn the curious into regulars
A new place is busy in week two for reasons that have nothing to do with the food. Curiosity fills tables once. Your only job that month is to find out who came back.
Ask the captains to note the tables who had been in before. Start a simple list of numbers from people who ask to be told about specials, with their permission, and use WhatsApp sparingly. Watch which day and which hour is empty, because that hour is the one to fix. A restaurant near a tech park in Bellandur with a full lunch and a dead Tuesday dinner has a different problem from one that is empty at lunch.
Reviews start here. Ask the guest at the table, on the day, from whoever served them. Answer every review yourself in plain words, especially the poor ones. A polite reply to a complaint about a forty-minute wait is read by fifty people deciding where to eat.
Week by week, what the job actually is
| When | The job | What to measure |
|---|---|---|
| Before opening | Listings, pin, photographs, menu with prices, a soft opening for the street | Profile verified, menu live, neighbours invited |
| Week one and two | Be found nearby, feed the curious, collect the first reviews | Covers per service, reviews this week, wait times |
| Week three and four | Bring back the people who came once, fix the empty hour | Repeat tables, covers on the weakest day |
| Month two | Delivery if the kitchen is ready, a reason to visit on a slow night | Delivery rating, revenue on the fixed night |
| Month three | Stop what was launch-only, keep what produced regulars | Cost per cover, share of repeat guests |
Influencers, and when they are worth it
The influencer parade is the most common way a new restaurant spends its launch budget badly. Twenty creators eat free in the first fortnight, the reels look busy, and the tables in week five are empty.
If you use creators at all, use the rule a good marketing head would use. Their followers must live nearby. The visit happens on a weekday, not a Saturday when the kitchen is already stretched. You agree what is posted and when, in writing. And you count what arrived: a code, a specific dish mentioned, or simply the covers that night against the same night last week.
One local food writer whose readers are in your postcode beats ten creators with large numbers elsewhere.
Aggregators, and what the listing really costs
Swiggy and Zomato bring orders you would not have got. They also take a commission, and the discounts they encourage come out of your margin, not theirs.
Do the arithmetic before you sign up for a deep discount programme. For example, on a ₹500 order with a 30 per cent discount and a commission on top, the kitchen may keep very little after food cost and packaging. That is acceptable for a month of visibility. It is not a business model.
The useful play is to use delivery for reach and dine-in for margin. Put a small printed card in every delivery bag with your direct number and the two dishes that travel badly and are worth coming in for.
What to stop after week three
Stop the standing discount, and let the free creator invitations end with it. Post fewer dishes on Instagram, and more of the two things people actually come back for.
Keep three things running. The Maps profile with fresh photographs and current timings, a steady flow of reviews, and one reason a month to come on your weakest night. A pasta night, a Sunday breakfast, a screening of the match. Something specific, announced in the same two streets you opened with.
What to do next
Open Maps on your phone tonight and search your own category with your locality name. See where you appear, what photograph shows first, and what the most recent review says. Then look at last week's covers by day and hour, and pick the worst slot. That slot is your marketing plan for next month. If you would like the listings and the first month reviewed with you, book the free audit.