Comment by xmprt
5 days ago
Yes and no. I find the restaurant on Google maps but 9/10 times the menu is either outdated or not properly structured and having a link to the menu website is better. So Google maps is the top of the funnel but I still appreciate a website.
For many local places here, the only way to get the menu online is if a customer posted a photo of the menu on Google maps or something.
And 1/3 of the time, that photo is too blurry and off-angle and whatnot to even read properly.
I can’t help but think what this means is just that the menu isn’t that’s important as a marketing tool. If having an up to date website and menu resulted in a noticeable boost in business, every restaurant would have it.
Average person either finds the place through google maps or a TikTok video, checks a few photos of the food or venue, then goes. Doesn’t matter what the exact menu is because there are plenty of options and something will be appealing.
Or it’s good for customers and bad for restaurants. There are such things, and menu can be easily one. Especially tourist focused restaurants infested with such tactics, and you can avoid most of them just looking on their menu.
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We usually order by phone, then drive by and pick up the food. Can't do that w/o a menu. The solution is usually to take a printed menu with you when you're there. But that's a chicken-and-egg problem!
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I think it's important for customers and they usuallly post the menu in google maps thing, basically the customers are doing the labor of the business owner and the business owner as he still gets the results he doesn't do it
You are moving the goalposts, subtly.
The conversational context did not involve anyone making any claims about the viability of businesses operating sans info. You can check—nowhere does the person who you're responding to (or any of the ancestor comments in this thread) write in their comment that companies are losing business because of the lack of up-to-date information, whether on their own site on through Google Maps.
The context is people, very reasonably, making a plea that that info be published on the open web.
What makes you think that the menu in the website is not going to be outdated.
I think the parent is making the assumption that a business owner would be able (and willing) to update the menu on their own website, whereas random pictures on Google Maps/Instagram might not have the most recent menu.
Really the previous comment should have mentioned Yelp, and perhaps Tripadvisor for non-American customers.