The numbers behind restaurant search — and what they mean for your visibility in 2026

Before diving into the numbers, a word on methodology. Restaurant SEO benchmarks come from several overlapping sources: Google's own published data on search behavior, third-party click-through rate studies, local SEO platform aggregations, and the experiences of SEO practitioners working directly in the food and beverage vertical.

No single dataset covers every restaurant type, market size, or cuisine category. A fine-dining establishment in a competitive metro will see very different numbers than a fast-casual chain in a mid-size city. Treat every benchmark here as a directional signal, not a guarantee.

Where we reference ranges from our own work, we note that explicitly. Where we cite industry-wide estimates, we flag the source type. This distinction matters for how you apply the data.

• Market size matters: CTR and ranking difficulty vary significantly between a top-10 metro and a regional market with fewer competitors.
• Cuisine category matters: High-volume categories like pizza, sushi, and burgers face more search competition than niche or ethnic cuisine categories.
• Profile completeness matters: Restaurants with incomplete Google Business Profiles tend to benchmark lower across nearly every local metric.

Disclaimer: Benchmarks vary significantly by market, restaurant size, and service mix. This content is educational and should not replace direct analysis of your own Google Search Console, Google Business Profile Insights, and analytics data.

Understanding search behavior is where restaurant SEO strategy has to start. The search patterns diners use have become increasingly predictable — and that predictability is an advantage for operators willing to build around them.

Mobile-First, Always

Google has published data showing that restaurant searches are among the most mobile-dominant of any local category. The majority of 'restaurant near me' and cuisine-type queries originate on smartphones, often within an hour of the intended visit. This means a restaurant's mobile experience — page speed, tap-to-call, menu accessibility — directly affects whether a searcher converts into a customer.

'Near Me' and Intent Signals

Queries like 'best Italian restaurant near me' or 'sushi open now' carry extremely high purchase intent. Industry benchmarks consistently show these near-me queries have accelerated year over year. Restaurants that optimize their Google Business Profile for these query patterns — accurate categories, service attributes, hours — tend to appear more frequently in the local pack for high-intent searches.

Discovery vs. Branded Search

Not all restaurant searches are created equal. Branded searches (people looking for your restaurant by name) are already won — the question is whether your listing shows complete, accurate information. Discovery searches (people looking for a type of food or experience) are where local SEO investment pays off. Capturing discovery traffic means ranking for category and cuisine terms before someone has decided where to eat.

In our experience working with restaurant clients, the ratio of discovery to branded search is often a useful diagnostic — a low discovery share suggests the restaurant is invisible to new diners who don't already know the name.

The local pack — the three-business map result that appears at the top of local searches — is the most valuable real estate in restaurant search. Multiple independent click-through rate studies have consistently found that local pack results receive a disproportionate share of clicks compared to organic listings below them.

Position Matters More Than You Think

Within the local pack itself, ranking position has a measurable impact. The first local pack result typically captures a substantially higher share of clicks than the second or third. For high-volume queries like 'restaurants near me,' even moving from position three to position one can meaningfully increase the volume of direction requests and website visits.

Reviews Amplify CTR

Star ratings are visible directly in the local pack. Industry data from platforms tracking local search behavior suggests that listings with higher average ratings and more total reviews tend to earn more clicks even at the same ranking position. A four-and-a-half-star restaurant at position two can outperform a lower-rated restaurant at position one in some markets.

Photos Drive Engagement

Google Business Profile Insights data (available to any restaurant owner in their own profile) consistently shows that profiles with more photos — especially food and interior photos — generate more views and more click-to-website actions than profiles with few or no images. This is one of the lowest-effort, highest-return local SEO tasks available to restaurant operators.

Benchmark caveat: CTR figures vary considerably depending on query type, geography, and how many ads appear above the local pack. In competitive metro markets, ad placements can push the local pack lower on the page, reducing its click share. Always consult your own Google Business Profile Insights data for your specific market context.

Traffic from local search doesn't automatically become revenue. The conversion chain — from search impression to click, from click to reservation or walk-in, from visit to repeat customer — has measurable gaps at every stage. Understanding where restaurants typically lose potential diners helps prioritize where to invest.

Direction Requests as a Leading Indicator

Direction requests from Google Business Profile are one of the clearest indicators of high-intent visitors. Someone requesting directions has effectively decided to visit — the question is whether they follow through. In our experience working with restaurant accounts, direction request volume from GBP Insights correlates closely with foot traffic trends, making it a practical metric to track weekly.

Website Visits and Menu Friction

Many diners click through to a restaurant website specifically to check the menu. If the menu is a PDF, loads slowly, or isn't mobile-friendly, conversion to reservation or visit drops. Industry benchmarks suggest restaurants with fast-loading, HTML-formatted menus (rather than PDFs) tend to see lower bounce rates from organic and local search traffic.

Third-Party vs. Direct Reservation Attribution

A significant share of reservations made after a local search happen through third-party platforms (OpenTable, Resy, etc.) rather than directly on the restaurant's website. This creates an attribution challenge — local SEO drives the initial discovery, but the conversion is credited to the platform. Operators should track both direct reservation conversions and third-party platform referrals to get a complete picture of search-driven revenue.

Many restaurants we've worked with undercount their SEO-driven revenue precisely because they only measure direct website conversions and miss the discovery-to-platform-booking pathway entirely.

Reviews are one of the most-studied ranking factors in local SEO, and restaurants operate in one of the highest-review-velocity categories of any local business type. The volume of reviews a restaurant accumulates — and how recently they were posted — directly influences local pack ranking in most markets.

What Review Signals Actually Affect

Google's local ranking algorithm weighs three broad factors: relevance, distance, and prominence. Reviews contribute to prominence. Specifically, review count, average rating, and recency are the three review dimensions that matter most for local ranking. A restaurant with 400 reviews averaging 4.2 stars will generally outrank a similar restaurant with 40 reviews averaging 4.8 stars in competitive markets, because volume and recency signal active, ongoing trust.

Response Rate as a Ranking Signal

Google has indicated that responding to reviews is a recommended practice for local businesses. While the direct ranking impact of response rate is debated among SEO practitioners, the indirect effect is clear: restaurants that respond to reviews — positive and negative — tend to maintain higher average ratings over time because they demonstrate engagement and service recovery.

Benchmarks by Cuisine Category

Review expectations vary by category. Fine dining establishments typically accumulate reviews more slowly than fast-casual or delivery-focused restaurants, simply due to visit frequency. Industry benchmarks suggest that in most mid-size to large markets, a competitive local pack position for restaurant searches requires a meaningful review base — but the specific threshold depends heavily on how many reviews your direct competitors have accumulated.

The most useful benchmark is always competitive: look at the three restaurants currently ranking in your target local pack and use their review profiles as your near-term goal, not an abstract industry average.

Restaurant search volume is not flat. It follows predictable seasonal patterns, event-driven spikes, and longer-term behavioral shifts that operators can anticipate and build content around in advance.

Predictable Seasonal Peaks

Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, New Year's Eve, and local holidays drive significant spikes in restaurant-related searches. Google Trends data (free to any operator) shows these spikes are consistent year over year. Restaurants that publish relevant content — special menus, holiday reservation pages, event-specific landing pages — before these peaks tend to rank for them more reliably than those who publish reactively.

The 'Open Now' and Late-Night Shift

Searches filtered by 'open now' have grown as a share of restaurant queries. Accurate, up-to-date hours on Google Business Profile are not just a customer service issue — they are a ranking factor for these filtered queries. Restaurants with outdated or missing hours are effectively invisible to one of the fastest-growing restaurant search intent categories.

Delivery and Takeout Query Growth

Post-pandemic search behavior has maintained elevated levels of delivery and takeout-related queries. 'Restaurants with delivery near me' and cuisine-plus-delivery combinations are high-volume, high-intent searches that many dine-in-focused restaurants have not optimized for. Restaurants that surface their delivery and takeout options clearly in their GBP attributes and website content capture this traffic without cannibalizing their dine-in positioning.

The broader trend worth watching: searchers are increasingly using specific intent modifiers — outdoor seating, private dining, vegan options, BYOB — that reward restaurants with detailed, complete profile attributes. The more specific your GBP and website content, the more of these long-tail, high-intent searches you become eligible to rank for.