By Matt Plapp
Last month, I told you eight out of 10 people in your restaurant aren’t in your database and how to fix that inside your four walls. That was the lesson on how to Attract In-Store. The next battlefield is everywhere else those customers live: their phones.
I’m Matt Plapp, CEO of America’s Best Restaurants. We help independent restaurant owners win new customers, win back lost customers, win more frequent visits, win higher checks, win their community’s attention and win against the chains.
We do it through our three pillars: Attract Attention, Build a Database, Retain Your Customers.
Today, we will focus on how to Attract Attention Digitally. This is the last leg of the Attract pillar—and the one most independents get the most wrong.
The 11-Chipotles Problem
I was in Vegas last week. There’s a Chipotle, a Tropical Smoothie, an Outback, a McDonald’s and a Starbucks on every corner. And it’s coming to a neighborhood near you, if it isn’t already there.
I live in Union, Kentucky. Thirty years ago, there were zero restaurants. Today, there are 23. The majority are chains. There are 11 Chipotles in my region—in fact, I pass six on my daily commute. You can’t compete with their million-dollar marketing budgets, their footprint or the signs on every corner.
What you can compete with is getting your customer’s attention back where it matters: their phone. They pick them up an average of 144 times a day. That’s where your customers live. That’s where you have to show up.
The Three Digital Battlegrounds
Three places matter, in this order: Social media, your website, and online listings and reviews.
Most owners blow it on all three. They treat social media like a 1980s Money Mailer, their website like Al Gore built it, and their Google listing like a thing they set up once in 2014 and never needed to look at again.
Let’s look at the three, one by one:
1. Social: Stop Selling. Start Entertaining.
Draw a line down the middle of the term “social media.” One side is social. The other is media. Social entertains. Media sells. You need both. Most restaurants do only the second half, and they do it badly.
Every day they make another post screaming, “Buy our pizza.” And, in 2026, it’s a ChatGPT image that looks identical to the one down the street. That’s not marketing. That’s noise.
Look at Stuff’D Steaks in Hershey, Pennsylvania. I reached out because his content was that good. Turns out he’d seen my Red Bull video, where I said, “Stop just selling pizza and start selling entertainment.” He ran with it and makes live videos with his son every week. They’ll get 10,000 views; one has 462 comments. He gives away lottery winnings on camera. He’s not talking about the food, but his food is sitting right there in every shot. This is a camouflage sales pitch: Put a face on your brand, and let the food sneak in the back door.
Then there’s Blasiole’s Pizza in Streetsboro, Ohio. Jack and his team ran a Cavaliers vs. Pistons guessing game post. It got 111 comments. It had nothing to do with pizza, but everything to do with holding attention—so when someone walks into their kitchen later, pizza is the first thing they think about.
When you do sell on social, sell something that stops the scroll, like a free 9” garlic cheese pizza—an offer they’d feel stupid saying no to. Discounting crushes your brand, so I’m not a fan. But this isn’t discounting. This is exchanging customer data for a one-time promo. They get the food once. You get the customer forever.
2. Your Website Should Not Look Like Al Gore Built It.
Your website is being compared to Papa John’s and Chipotle, whether you like it or not. If yours looks like a Dell desktop built it in 2009, you’ve already lost.
A restaurant filled out our marketing audit this morning. I went to their website to find their physical address, and it was nowhere to be found. If a customer can’t find your address in a few seconds, you’ve lost them.
And, on your About Us page, tell your story! Your competition is a faceless chain; you are not. Avery with Little Italy in Groveport, Ohio, is a perfect example. His page includes five to six paragraphs accompanied by pictures from the past, including an amazing one of him as a kid with his dad in the kitchen.
Don’t tell your story in a few sentences; give them the full story. Make it long and detailed, and include your face on it.
3. Listings and Reviews.
Pay for a platform like Marquee or Single Platform. Update your info once, and it updates everywhere. I recently pulled up a restaurant’s Google listing that said “permanently closed,” and I had just eaten there! Customers are walking past your door, because Google said you were dead.
Now on to reviews: Reply to every single one, and be specific. If a customer writes that her catering was hot, on time and competitively priced, don’t just say “Thanks!” Say, “Jessica, so glad the catering worked for the family party. Hot and ready in [insert your city] is what we do.” The next person reading sees your voice. They see you took the time to reply, and then Google sees the keywords, like catering and your city. Replying to reviews isn’t something a third party should be doing for you, and it surely isn’t something to copy and paste replies for.
Negative reviews? Be honest. Don’t get mad. We all suck sometimes. Apologize. Put your cell number in the reply. Sign your name. The bad review isn’t the problem; how you respond is your billboard.
You’re Renting. Start Owning.
When you pay Facebook for an ad, you’re renting their audience. When you make an organic post, you’re renting their platform. One of our clients recently lost access to their Facebook page due to a hack. But they weren’t panicking. They have a massive email list, a massive text list, and a loyalty program full of customers they own.
That’s the whole point of the Attract pillar: You don’t attract attention to entertain people for free. You attract attention to convert it into something you own. Skip Build, and you’re paying to rent the same audience every month forever.
Let’s take this example from Fine Folk Pizza in Fort Myers, Florida—in 12 months, it’s reached over 200,000 people and had 600,000 impressions.
The ad spend to do that was our rental payment. But guess what—this ad was built to win! With a strong one-time call to action, they were able to build a database of 5,565 customers that they now own.
You see, every month, they add about 500 customers to their database from their ad, and then the next month, they use their ad spend to target new people and build another list. So while 99% of pizzerias are paying Facebook over and over and over to simply reach the same people with ads that don’t sell, this owner is building a new database every month. This is the difference between renting and owning.
Your marketing plan had better be built around owning!
I’m Matt Plapp, the CEO of America’s Best Restaurants, and we exist to help independent restaurant owners win. Not survive—win. We help them win through their marketing and by leveraging our three pillars: Attract Attention, Build a Database and Retain Your Customers. The goal is to win new customers, win back lost customers, win more frequent visits, win higher check averages, win your community’s attention, and win against the chains. That last one is the one keeping you up at night. And it should be.
