Google Business Profile for Restaurants: Menu, Hours, Orders

Two kinds of menu, and they are not the same

The menu editor lets you add each dish with a name, a description, a price and a section, straight on the profile. Google can read that and show it in Search and Maps. Google's help page says the feature "is available to food and drink businesses", so your category decides whether you see it at all. If you have a menu provided by the Business Profile API, the editor may be missing for you. Changes take 24 to 48 hours to show. The second option is the Menu link, found under Edit profile, Business information, Contact. It only points to a menu somewhere else, such as a page on your website or a PDF. It is a plain link, not dish by dish data. If Google finds more than one menu source, open the Full menu tab and select your preferred one; that is the menu customers see.

Special hours have a six day limit

Special hours are for short changes: a holiday, an event, a repair. Google allows them when you adjust your hours or stay closed "for up to 6 days in a row". At 7 days or more, or when you do not know when you will reopen, Google says to mark the business Temporarily closed instead. Google also suggests confirming your holiday hours even when they do not change, so customers can see the hours are current. For late opening, one set of special hours cannot run longer than 24 hours. If a night runs from the evening past noon the next day, split it into two sets at midnight.

Food ordering is a list of links, not a checkout

Google no longer takes the order itself. Google told its delivery partners the checkout inside Search would end by the end of June 2024 (Search Engine Roundtable, 17 May 2024; AndNowUKnow). The Order button stayed, but it now sends the customer to your own ordering page or to a delivery partner. What you manage today is the Food ordering panel. You can add your own ordering link, mark a provider as preferred, and hide a delivery partner you no longer want to show. To hide one partner completely, open it, choose Show provider to customers, and turn off both Show for pickup and Show for delivery. Google says these updates usually appear within a few hours.

A five minute check you can do today

Search your restaurant's name on your phone, signed out, the way a customer would. Tap Menu and see whether it opens your dish list or your website. Look at the hours for the next public holiday and see whether they match what you will actually open. Tap Order and note every app that appears. If one of them is a partner you left months ago, hide it now, so customers are not sent to an app you no longer use.

What comes first

None of this beats the basics. Claim and verify the profile, choose the most specific category, keep your address and hours the same as on your website, and keep earning recent reviews. If your restaurant does not show on Google at all, fix that first. Once it shows, these three features decide whether the menu, hours and ordering links people see are the ones you meant.