“Where should I eat?” — and what the assistant actually says

Emmer & Rye is a well-reviewed restaurant with a seasonal tasting menu, and on 'best restaurant for seasonal tasting menu in Austin' the assistants named another restaurant and a listicle — because, as the report puts it, the site never explicitly says it offers one. The other questions it lost went the same way: 'best for families' went to the tourism board and Tribeza, 'most recommended' to Resy and Michelin, 'date night' to the Michelin guide again. Look at what is cited underneath and little of it is a restaurant's own site: a Reddit thread on twenty-two of the thirty questions, OpenTable and The Infatuation on nineteen, Tripadvisor on eighteen, the Austin Chronicle on twelve. The answer in this category is assembled from other people's pages, so most of the work is off the website — the profiles being quoted, and the occasion questions the site leaves to the phone.

On each profile you claim, write the name, address, phone and website exactly as the site has them.

• OpenTable

  Claim it

  Cited on 19 of the 30 questions in the run above.

  1. Sign in at OpenTable for Restaurants and claim or update the listing.
  2. Check cuisine, neighbourhood, price band, hours and the menu are current.
  Claim it on OpenTable

• Tripadvisor

  Claim it

  Cited on 18 of the 30 questions in the run above.

  1. Open the Tripadvisor owners' centre and claim the listing.
  2. Add cuisine or property type, price range, hours, menu or amenities and photos.
  Claim it on Tripadvisor

• Resy

  Customers only

  Cited by Perplexity and Gemini for “most recommended restaurant in Austin, TX”.

  A restaurant is on Resy by taking its reservations through it, with Resy OS — a paid product, not a free listing. If you do, keep the cuisine, price band, hours and booking times current there.

  Open it

• The Infatuation

  Editors choose

  Cited on 19 of the 30 questions in the run above.

  Editors choose and write the guides; nobody claims a place. Send news — a new menu, an opening — to the editors, and keep the hours and booking link they link to current.

• The MICHELIN Guide

  Chosen, not claimed

  Cited on 11 of the 30 questions — by Perplexity for “best restaurant for families in Austin, TX”.

  Inspectors choose, anonymously; there is nothing to apply for.

• Your city's visitor bureau

  Membership

  Cited on 11 of the 30 questions — by ChatGPT for “best restaurant for families in Austin, TX”.

  Visit Austin's guides were cited on eleven of the thirty questions. A visitor bureau lists its members and writes guides about them; ask yours how a business joins and gets into the guides.

• Reddit

  Community

  Cited on 22 of the 30 questions in the run above.

  Threads are quoted as word of mouth. Nothing to claim: answer as yourself, and say who you are.

We are booked out already. Why would we care?

You might not, and that is a legitimate answer. Where this matters is a second location, a quiet season, or a category where you are competing for a visitor who has no local knowledge at all.

What if our menu changes every week?

Then the priority is that whatever is published is text, not an image, and that the profiles say the menu changes. A stale PDF from eighteen months ago is worse than a short note saying the menu moves.

Do you post reviews or reply to them?

No. That is outside what this does, deliberately — a tool that wrote your review replies is a tool you should be suspicious of.

Does this work for hotels?

The same question set applies reasonably well; the aggregators are different ones. Run it and look at the questions to judge for yourself.

What if we barely have a website?

Then the report will mostly be about the profiles, and it will say so. A short honest list beats a long one full of work you cannot do.

What does it cost?

The first report is free: a free account gets 10 credits — one report, 10 prompts on three engines — with no card. Plans start at $49 a month for 150 credits, across up to 10 brands.