What does restaurant marketing cost?

The number of sources, the number of campaigns and the amount of tracking the host stand will do. A single dining room with one source costs less to set up than a group running search, ads, a listing and an ordering platform across several locations. I give a written scope after I have looked at the sources and the booking log.

Can you promise more covers?

No. I cannot promise a number of covers, orders, reviews or visits, because those depend on the concept, the location, the season and the guests. What I can promise is that every booking will have a source, the readout will name the cost of each one, and the accounts stay in your name.

Why hire one consultant instead of an agency?

An agency sells a team and a package, and the person who signs the contract often is not the person who changes the campaign. I do the work myself, so the person who writes the pages and reads the log is the person you talk to. You also keep the accounts, which is harder to do when an agency holds them.

Do I need to be in Las Vegas to work with you?

No, but the tracking and the host stand work are easier when I can see the room. I work from Las Vegas and meet owners across the Valley in person, at the restaurant or over a call, and I can work with restaurants elsewhere through the same tracking and readout.

Should I stop using the delivery apps?

Not until the readout shows what each channel costs and what it keeps. Some apps bring orders that would not have come any other way, and some take margin from guests who would have ordered direct. I keep app orders and direct orders in the same report, so the decision is yours and based on the numbers.

Do I own the accounts and the guest list?

Yes. The site, the domain, the ad accounts, the booking log, the guest list and every login are in your business name, and you receive the full list. If you stop working with me, you keep the log, the pages and the history of what each source produced.

Restaurant Marketing

Name: Justin Harris AI Consulting
Address: Las Vegas, NV, 89148, US
Telephone: +1-725-324-7571
Price range: $$$

Covers and orders you can count

Restaurant marketing for owners who want to see which search, ad, listing or guest list produced each reservation and online order, and what each one cost to get.

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★★★★★ 5-star rated on Google · 14 years · 300+ Las Vegas businesses

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How a Restaurant Makes Money

Where a guest is worth money

A restaurant earns on a visit, and a visit is a small set of transactions. A guest books a table or walks in, orders, returns a few weeks later and sometimes brings a group. The dining room, the takeout window and the catering line each follow the same pattern with different margins and different busy hours.

That makes the useful numbers covers, reservations, online orders and the share of guests who come back, not impressions or followers. A dining room with full covers on weeknights and empty tables on Tuesdays has a different problem from one with strong brunch and weak late seatings, and marketing that treats them alike spends where it should not.

How Guests Choose a Restaurant

The path from a craving to a table

Most guests decide in minutes. Someone searches for a cuisine near them, checks the hours and the menu, looks at a few photos and reads a handful of recent reviews. Then they book, order or drive past. The decision is made on the phone, often in a car, and it rewards a clear first screen more than a clever campaign.

Word of mouth still matters, and it is hard to count. A regular who recommends a dish sends a guest who arrives already sold. I keep that channel in the readout as a named source, labeled as referrals, so it is counted honestly instead of being credited to whichever ad ran that week.

The Restaurant Marketing Problem

Spend that cannot show a booking

The common pain is spend that cannot be read. An owner pays for ads, a listing service or a monthly marketing package, and receives reports of impressions, reach and clicks. Nobody lists which of those led to a reservation, a walk-in or an online order, so the cost of a booking is never on the page.

A second pain follows. When the Tuesday covers dip, the owner cannot tell whether the ads stopped working, the listing hours are wrong or the guests who came in did not return. Without a trail from the source to the booking, every answer is a guess, and the guess usually blames the most recent expense.

A business owner reviewing work on a phone

Delivery Apps and Your Margin

Keeping the order on a link you own

Delivery and listing apps bring orders, but they keep a commission on each one and they keep the guest. A regular who orders through an app is a customer of the app, and the owner cannot email them, offer them a dish or learn what they liked. Over a year, that gap is a large share of the margin on takeout.

I do not tell owners to leave the apps. I set up a direct ordering link, track the orders that come through it, and show the readout the split between app orders and direct orders. The owner decides the mix, and the numbers show what each choice costs.

A common mistake is to judge the apps by order count alone. An app order that replaces a direct order costs the commission for nothing, while an app order from a guest who never found the restaurant any other way is new revenue. The source field is the only way to tell those two apart.

Constraints in Restaurant Marketing

Rules I work within for restaurants

Restaurant marketing sits under food licensing rules, alcohol advertising limits, platform policies on promotions and delivery, and the allergen and nutrition wording that guests check. Those limits change the copy, the offers and the claims, so I check them before any page, ad or post goes live.

I treat them as marketing considerations only. Whether your licensing, alcohol and promotion wording meets your state and local rules is a call for you and your counsel, and I will not tell you a page or an ad is compliant.

Menu and hours information changes often, so I treat every page that shows either as a living page. I check the menu, the hours, the address and the reservation link against what the restaurant says today, then log the date of the check. A stale closing time sends a hungry guest to a dark door, and the review that follows stays on the profile for years.

Alcohol wording checked before any promotion runs
Allergen and nutrition claims kept to what the kitchen can show
Platform rules on offers and delivery reviewed
Licensing and counsel make the final call

How a Guest Finds a Table

The route from first search to first visit

Search or listing

A guest finds the place through search, a map listing or a friend, and the hours and menu are the first things they check.

Menu and photos

The guest reads the menu, looks at the room and decides whether the place fits the night they have in mind.

Book or order

A reservation, an online order or a walk-in starts the visit, and each one can be traced to the source that brought it.

Come back

The second visit is where a restaurant earns most of its margin, and it is the step the readout should count.

Restaurant Marketing Services

I take on restaurant marketing as three services that share one tracking setup. Each one has its own page, so you can start with the gap you see first, and the covers log connects all three.

Start with the service that matches the gap in the readout. A restaurant that is found but not booked usually needs its site first, and one that is booked but not found usually needs its search work first. The ads come after both, once there is a trail to read.

Where I take on the work

Step 01
Restaurants: SEO
Menu pages, hours and ordering links written to what guests search for, with each visit traced to the search behind it.
Step 02
Restaurants: Web Design
A site built around the menu, the reservation link and the ordering button, tracked from the first visit to the booking.
Step 03
Restaurants: Ads
Daypart campaigns for slow blocks, each with its own offer and readout of the reservations and orders it brings.

Covers and Orders Tracking

Each booking followed to its source

The core of the work is one log that every booking and order passes through. Each row holds the source, the date, the party size or the order value, whether the guest came back and the channel. The log lives in a sheet or a reservation system you own, and the readout is drawn from it.

Front-of-house staff record the source at the host stand or at the point of order, and I make that step as short as possible. A dropdown with a few choices is enough. Where a booking has no source, the log says so, because an unknown source is still a finding.

Party size and order value go into the same row, so the readout can show covers per source, not only bookings. A source that brings many small parties and few large ones is a different business case from one that brings the reverse, and the log is the only place that difference shows.

Restaurant Marketing Strategy

A plan built on covers

The strategy I start with is simple. Find the source that fills slow blocks at the lowest cost, grow it in steps, and stop any source that cannot be matched to a booking. Every step has a written stop rule, so the budget moves on evidence rather than on hope.

Most restaurants already run several sources. The first job is to read what each one produced for the slow blocks, then move money from sources that cannot show a booking to the ones that can. The change is usually small, and it is easier to keep once the numbers are visible.

The mistakes I see most often are a budget set by last year's spend, a source judged by its cost per click, and a host stand that never records where the guest came from. Each one hides the covers that matter.

Restaurant Marketing Ideas

Campaigns that fit a dining room

Restaurant owners often hear that they should advertise everywhere at once. A dining room has a radius, a set of hours and a limited number of seats, so the useful question is which campaign reaches the guests who can come in during the next few days.

The formats I start with are local search pages, a map listing kept in step with the site, a daypart offer for the slow block, and a retargeting ad for people who viewed the menu. Each one is chosen for a block, not for the whole brand, and each one keeps its own landing page and tracking.

Seasonal moments such as a holiday weekend or a sports event are handled the same way. They get their own short campaign with a start and stop date, and the readout shows whether the spike brought covers or only traffic that never sat down.

Restaurant Email Marketing

A guest list you own

A guest list is the one channel that stays with the restaurant. A guest who opts in to hear about a new menu or a slow-night offer can be reached without paying a platform each time, and the list grows from the people who already came in.

I set up the sign-up at the table or at checkout, keep the consent wording clear, and send a short message on a schedule the owner approves. Each send is tracked to the reservations and orders it produces, so the list is judged like every other source.

A send that brings no bookings is not a failure to hide. It is a result to read, and the readout reports it beside the sends that worked. Unsubscribe requests are counted too, because a list that shrinks quickly is telling the owner something about the message.

Restaurant Marketing Agency

One person, not a rotating team

Many owners have hired a marketing agency that sold a monthly package, sent a rotating account manager and reported impressions. The reports looked busy, the package kept renewing, and nobody could say which campaign filled a Tuesday.

I am the person doing the work. I write the pages, set the tracking and read the covers log with you, so you never have to guess who changed a campaign or why the bookings dropped.

The strongest argument for a larger team is coverage across many channels at once. For a restaurant with one or two working sources, that coverage mostly adds reports, not covers. I would rather keep the accounts small, tracked and yours than spread thin across channels nobody can read.

Restaurant Marketing Plan

The first ninety days, in order

Step 01
Days one to fourteen
I read every source, the booking log and the current host stand process, and send a written read before any spend changes.
Step 02
Days fifteen to thirty
Tracking is set up on the reservation link, the ordering button, the call number and each campaign, so every booking has a source from then on.
Step 03
Days thirty-one to sixty
The weakest source is paused or reduced, and the strongest is tested on one slow block with a written stop rule.
Step 04
Days sixty-one to ninety
The first full covers readout is compared with the starting read, and the next changes are chosen from it.

Restaurant Marketing Cost

What moves the budget

I quote a fixed price for a written scope after I have looked at your sources, your booking volume and how the host stand works. A single-location dining room and a group with catering and private events are different jobs, so a price list would be wrong for most of the owners who ask.

Ad platform fees, listing subscriptions and any ordering or reservation software are separate lines, and each one appears in the scope before you agree. A scope that names each source and each tracking step keeps the total readable, so no line is hidden inside a package.

The first scope is also the template for the first readout, so the numbers you see later match the costs you agreed to.

Get a written scope

Monthly Covers Readout

The one-page report I send you

Every month you get one page: bookings and orders by source, the covers and order value of each, the cost of each booking, and any booking that could not be traced. The host stand's source field is the basis for the numbers, so the page reports only what the staff recorded.

The readout reads like a ledger, so you can check it against your own reservation book in an afternoon. Where a month has gaps in the source field, the readout shows the gap in its own row, so a quiet month cannot pass as a good one.

Each month also names the one change the numbers support and the one it does not. That keeps the next decision short, and it keeps the marketing from drifting into a list of things that were tried and never judged.

Slow Blocks and Daypart Demand

Filling the weeknight and the lull

Restaurant demand comes in blocks. A weekday lunch, a Sunday brunch, a Thursday early seating and a Friday late table each pull from a different crowd, and each one has its own empty chairs. A single always-on campaign averages them out, so the block that is failing hides behind the one that is full.

I work block by block. Each slow block gets one offer, one landing page and one line in the readout, and the owner can cut a block that does not fill without touching the rest of the week. The question I ask first is which block the owner wants to grow, because a brunch push and a late-night push need different guests.

Host Stand Source Capture

The source question at the table

The source of a booking is usually lost at the host stand. A guest calls, books, arrives and sits down, and nobody writes down whether the booking came from a search, a listing, an ad, a friend or a repeat visit. Without that one field, the readout cannot tell an ad from a referral.

The fix is a short question at booking and a short field at the point of sale: how did the guest hear about the restaurant is replaced by a fixed list of sources, with a box for other. Staff need a short script, a few minutes of training and a weekly check of blank fields, and the readout counts the blanks instead of hiding them.

Las Vegas Marketing Portfolio

Work I built, live where you can check it

Every build below is real and every link goes to the live work. None of them is a restaurant client. The closest work I have is a Henderson clinic site and my own web design brand, and each card says which.

WebVegas homepage at webvegas.io with its four-step booking form

Website build · Las Vegas

WebVegas: a Las Vegas web design brand and its booking funnel

I designed and built webvegas.io, a Las Vegas web design and SEO brand: the site, a four-step booking form that hands each lead a free design walkthrough, and the brand behind it.

See the live site

Portfolio Examples

More of the work

The rest of the range, with what each one was and a link wherever the work is live.

GIOSTAR services page at giostarwellness.com, a website I built for a Henderson clinic

Website build · Henderson

GIOSTAR: the clinic website, booking and lead tracking

See the live site

Brand mark · Event venue

Desert Inn Oasis: the refined mark and the plan for the new site

Site in build

Brand identity · Pharma

Mili Pharma: the butterfly mark and the lockups

Site in build

Three Quotible social posts built from customer testimonials

Social content system

Quotible: a testimonial-led social series

Content system

Restaurant Marketing Reviews

What clients wrote on Google

Every written review on my Google Business Profile, word for word, including the one that gave four stars. Nothing is picked or paraphrased, and the link above opens the same reviews on Google. Also rated five stars by Cyndee M., Angela M., Dan H.. Read them on Google

★★★★★
After going back and forth on whether to bring in outside help, we ended up working with Justin for some AI consulting on how to structure our operations. He laid out a clear plan, didn't overcomplicate it, and we've been running smoother since. Good fit for a service business. He knows Las Vegas and he knows this stuff.
Kristen S. · Google
★★★★★
Justin joined our team a few months before opening to replace a marketing agency that wasn’t performing. He stepped up fast. Within weeks he launched a fully redesigned website with new brand guidelines, built and delivered our marketing plan and AI strategy, and helped implement our system architecture so we could open on time. Since then, he’s made several critical enhancements to the site that helped us generate revenue in our first month. His engagement was supposed to end at opening, but he became such an integral part of our leadership team that we kept him on to help evolve our marketing and tech strategy as we grow. He’s easy to work with, pushes back when it matters, and moves easily between strategy, delivery, and operations depending on what’s needed. If you’re looking for a deeply experienced, knowledgeable, and dedicated marketing, AI, or technology consultant, I highly recommend Justin Harris AI Consulting.
Devin R. · Google
★★★★★
Justin has been a true Gem to have as part of our company. His professionalism, immediate attention to branding and extensive details in marketing has made so much improvement on our business. We are forever grateful to have such and amazing marketing asset and cannot thank you enough Justin!
Desi W. · Google
★★★★
Justin Harris was very helpful in resolving some issues we had with our Webflow website.
Kristy F. · Google
★★★★★
I had the pleasure of working alongside Justin and consistently saw firsthand the level of dedication and professionalism he brings to his work. He was always the first one in the office, setting the tone with his strong work ethic and commitment to excellence. What stood out most was how deeply he cared about every client. He approached each project with thoughtfulness, expertise, and a genuine drive to deliver meaningful results. He combines sharp technical knowledge with a practical, solutions-oriented mindset, which makes him especially effective in the AI space. Any organization looking for thoughtful, reliable, and highly skilled AI consulting support would be in great hands working with him!
Jenevine Y. · Google
★★★★★
Hired him to manage our AI systems and it's been pretty smooth. He knew what needed to be done and got it handled without a lot of back and forth. Good experience for our service business.
BC G. · Google
★★★★★
I follow Justin on social media and read about his work and his contributions to the AI industry. He really knows how to use the technology in creating a system that allows you to make your business work more efficiently and effectively.
Ana J. · Google
★★★★★
Justin was the person I would go to for advice about AI automation for my workload. He knew the subject well and didn't overcomplicate it. For anyone in Las Vegas running a service business and wondering if AI systems are worth looking into, talking to him first is a great move!
Yaneliz M. · Google
★★★★★
Working with Justin is always a pleasure. He is professional, trustworthy, and consistently delivers outstanding results. As a longtime Las Vegas local, he has an exceptional knowledge of the territory and truly understands the market. I highly recommend his services to anyone who is serious about growing their business!
k C. · Google
★★★★★
From what I've seen, Justin knows the AI automation space better than most people I've come across in Las Vegas. He's the kind of person who actually understands the technical side and can explain it without making you feel lost. Good guy, good reputation.
Afaryn F. · Google
★★★★★
I've Known Justin for a while now and he really knows his stuff when it comes to AI consulting. If people in Las Vegas were to ask me for recommendations in this space, he's the best guy for the job, hands down.
Mickey S. · Google
★★★★★
After going back and forth on whether to bring in outside help, we reached out to Justin for some AI consulting advice on where our service business could actually use automation. He was straightforward about what made sense and what didn't. Ended up being a useful conversation. Las Vegas has no shortage of people claiming to be experts, and he's one of the few who could back it up.
Vincent M. · Google
★★★★★
Known Justin for a few years now and the guy actually knows his stuff when it comes to AI automation. Friends in the Las Vegas service business space keep asking me who to call and I always point them his way.
Chris M. · Google
★★★★★
Justin is one of those guys who actually knows what he's talking about and doesn't cut any corners. Will definitely be working with him again.
David S. · Google
★★★★★
Justin knows what he's doing highly recommend using his service he will treat you right and give you tremendous value !👍
Gregory J. · Google
★★★★★
Known Justin for a many years and the guy actually knows what he's talking about when it comes to AI and automation. Not the type to just throw buzzwords around. Based in Las Vegas and well connected in the space. …
cindy D. · Google
★★★★★
Known Justin for a few years now. Guy knows the AI space better than most people I've come across, especially here in Las Vegas where there's no shortage of people claiming to be experts. He actually understands how AI automation works at a practical level, not just the theory. The kind of person who gives you a straight answer with kindness and patience
Katelyn H. · Google
★★★★★
Knew Justin before he started building AI systems for businesses, and watching what he's put together is genuinely impressive. He built out an AI automation setup for my website in Las Vegas and it changed how we handle leads completely. The guy actually runs this stuff himself, so he knows what works.
Justin E. · Google

Restaurant Marketing NV

Every part of the Valley, by ZIP code

I work from Las Vegas and set up restaurant marketing for owners across the Valley, at the restaurant or over a call. Henderson, Summerlin and North Las Vegas each have their own page for people searching by area.

Las Vegas

89030 · 89101 · 89102 · 89104 · 89106 · 89107 · 89108 · 89109 · 89110 · 89117 · 89124 · 89128 · 89129 · 89130 · 89131 · 89134 · 89138 · 89143 · 89144 · 89145 · 89146 · 89149 · 89166

Henderson

89002 · 89005 · 89011 · 89012 · 89014 · 89015 · 89044 · 89052 · 89054 · 89074 · 89120 · 89122 · 89123 · 89183

North Las Vegas

89030 · 89031 · 89032 · 89081 · 89084 · 89085 · 89086 · 89101 · 89115 · 89130

Summerlin

89128 · 89134 · 89135 · 89138 · 89144 · 89145 · 89148 · 89161

Spring Valley

89102 · 89103 · 89113 · 89117 · 89118 · 89146 · 89147 · 89148 · 89178

Paradise

89074 · 89102 · 89103 · 89109 · 89118 · 89119 · 89120 · 89121 · 89123 · 89158 · 89169 · 89183

Enterprise

89113 · 89118 · 89119 · 89123 · 89139 · 89141 · 89148 · 89178 · 89179 · 89183

Sunrise Manor

89104 · 89110 · 89115 · 89121 · 89122 · 89142 · 89156

Boulder City

89005 · 89044

Restaurant Marketing Companies

How I compare with the usual choices

Owners usually weigh a large agency, a listing or app vendor, and a specialist who does the work directly. The difference is who owns the accounts and whether the numbers reach a booking. One test works with any of them: ask for last quarter's bookings with the source of each. A dashboard of clicks means the provider cannot yet count the guests who pay you.

	Large agency	Listing or app vendor	Me
Who owns the accounts	Often the agency	The vendor	You, in your name
What gets reported	Impressions and clicks	Orders sold through the app	Bookings, orders and covers by source
Who reads the numbers	An account rep	The vendor dashboard	I do, with you, every month
Can you leave with the data	Often no	Usually no	Yes, the accounts and log are yours

Restaurant Marketing Questions

Questions owners ask before they hire me

Straight answers to what owners ask me before they hire me. If yours is not here, ask it on a call.

About Justin Harris

Who runs the covers log

I am Justin Harris. I have built websites and run digital marketing for Las Vegas businesses for fourteen years, and I still build the tracking and read the numbers myself.

When you hire me you talk to the person setting up the covers log and writing the readout, not a rotating team.

I work from Las Vegas and keep a small client list on purpose, so each owner gets the same attention on the first readout and the twelfth.

Each month I read the covers log with the owner: the nights that ran full, the nights that did not and what changed on the pages that week. A restaurant keeps its own numbers, and I use them in place of a rank. When a campaign cannot be tied to a booked table, the log marks it as untied and I say so plainly.

Restaurant Marketing Links

Where this page fits

Restaurants are one of the trades I take on. These pages cover the same owner's question from the search, site and ad angles, and from the wider hospitality list.

Proof, not promises

See all of my work

Marketing Services Las Vegas

The rest of what I run for restaurants

Every engagement is scoped the same plain way, and one person does all of it.

Get a Free Marketing Audit

A free look at the sources first

Send me a short description of your current sources and your booking volume. I will read the covers log setup and reply the same day with what I would change first, whether you hire me or not.

Get Free Audit