A restaurant blog is beneficial for several reasons. One, a blog WILL bring you more search engine traffic with time. Two, a restaurant blog gives customers a reason to return to your website frequently. Three, support all of your locations and employees with tailored blog posts. Four, promote what’s new, special, and important. Five, differentiate your restaurant. Few bars and restaurants update their blog regularly or blog at all, so this is a real opportunity to stand out.

Once you decide to have a blog on your restaurant website, then you have to commit to publishing once a week or every other week. A content plan will ensure it gets done. As you begin your planning process, use this list of 30 restaurant blog post ideas for inspiration.

  1. Weekly restaurant specials
  2. New menu items
  3. Are there stories behind any menu items? e.g., grandma’s recipe with a twist; alcoholic beverage inspired by a trip, etc.
  4. Extraordinary customer testimonials. Bonus points if you can get that customer to take a photo or share their review on video.
  5. Share recipes from your menu that you don’t mind giving away, or share recipes that you don’t serve but are still in line with your restaurant concept.
  6. Answer a frequently asked question.
  7. Promote an upcoming event and then post pictures of the event after the fact.
  8. Does your restaurant support your community or a charity somehow? Write regular blog posts showcasing that work and inviting others to participate, too.
  9. Have local or special artwork on the walls? Tell us about it.
  10. Profile an employee as he or she approaches an anniversary.
  11. Choose an employee of the month and/or a customer of the month to showcase.
  12. Are you in a business district with lots of neighbors? Why not feature a neighbor each month, too?
  13. Profile the farmers or food manufacturers you source from and are proud to work with.
  14. Talk about current food and menu trends. We love what Kimpton Hotels did here.
  15. People love their sports. If you have TVs in your restaurant and will be airing an upcoming game or games, what can you say about it? Perhaps, there’s a rivalry among your employees worth sharing or a special dish and drink you’ll serve this month to support the team.
  16. Every one of your menu items could be paired with an alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink or two. Talk up the flavors of each and why a particular wine, beer, cocktail, or mocktail would go hand-in-hand.
  17. Lists! Readers enjoy lists of all kinds (like a list of 30 Restaurant Blog Post Ideas for example!). The possibilities are endless.
    • The top 10 ingredients we use in the kitchen.
    • Our 5 most popular menu items.
    • 3 new trendy flavors coming to a plate near you.
  18. Just like “lists,” “how-to’s” are very popular on blogs. Do you have complicated or unfamiliar menu items? Create a how-to on the best way to cook seafood, or season food, or cut your steak. The sky is the limit here! Great opportunity for video, too.
  19. Write a blog post featuring links to and summaries of all press mentions of your restaurant. If you want to encourage the media, including local food bloggers, to cover your restaurant, hold a media preview or private meal/tasting.
  20. What are your favorite food television shows? Top Chef, Chopped, Ina Garten? Write a review of your favorite episode. Or, perhaps, rant about a food show you hate. It’s ok to have an opinion on this one.
  21. Write a review of a new cookbook.
  22. Look at the popular mainstream news. What is happening in food right now that you can weigh in on?
  23. When a celebrity chef comes to town on a book tour or a friend participates in cooking competition, attend and share the experience.
  24. Get comfortable with your camera. Practice taking photos regularly for social media and create themed blog posts of your best photos.
  25. Cooking and/or baking tips straight from the chef.
  26. Write a thank you letter or love letter to your customers.
  27. Write a re-cap of a social media campaign. While MailChimp isn’t a restaurant, they’ve done an awesome job with this campaign, which appears both on social media and on their website.
  28. Generate menu ideas from your customer base. Looking for a new item to put on your menu? Why not go directly to the source and ask your customers what they’d like to see.
  29. Showcase your holiday spirit. If you decorate, dress up, or have holiday-themed menu items, create blog posts about them.
  30. Start a monthly or weekly “staff picks” post. No one knows your restaurant as well as your staff. Why not post about their favorite menu items?

BONUS TIP! Topics Based on Long-Tail Keywords

You might be able to rank for “Denver restaurant” in the search engines, but it’s going to take a lot of work. However, it won’t take a lot of work to rank for terms like “summertime Denver restaurant” or “Denver hamburger restaurant.” In the biz, we call these long-tail keyword phrases.

Our tip is to write a lot of blog posts about Denver incorporating a mix of longer keyword phrases. Using our keyword examples above, appropriate blog posts could be “The 2017 Summer Foodie Events in Denver We’ll Be Attending” or “10 Hamburger Restaurants We Visit on Vacation.”

And how do you find out what restaurant keywords people are using in search? Well, you could hire us to do complex keyword research and make recommendations, or you could look at Ubersuggest and Google Trends for some basic ideas.

Happy blogging!

Sara Lancaster

About Sara Lancaster

Sara is The Condiment Marketing Co.’s founder and creative director. She oversees client relationships, strategic marketing plans, as well as a bit of copywriting and social media management.