83% of restaurants never show up when you ask ChatGPT for a…

83% of restaurants never show up when you ask ChatGPT for a recommendation. On Google it's 14%.

That's from Local Falcon, which looked at 189,905 ChatGPT results for restaurant searches like "best Italian restaurant near me" back in February. Only 17% of restaurants appeared even once.

This week it got more urgent. OpenAI launched business profiles for ChatGPT, so companies can hand it their hours, locations, menus and contact details directly. TechBuzz and Nation's Restaurant News both covered it. Pricing and how ranking works haven't been shared yet.

I build websites for restaurants in Austin. For ten years the job was simple: look good on Google, make booking easy. Now there's a second front door, and most of my clients don't know it exists.

What I'm doing with clients this month:

Menu as real text on the site. Not a PDF, not a photo of a chalkboard.

Hours, address and phone exactly the same everywhere. Website, Google, Yelp.

One short paragraph that says what you're known for, in plain words. "Wood-fired pizza, gluten-free crust, heated patio."

Watch for the ChatGPT business profile and claim it early.

The best restaurant in the neighborhood doesn't win if the robot has never heard of it.