Restaurant Social Media Marketing Agency That Fills Seats
Turn scrolling into reservations. Real content and consistent posting that put your food in front of nearby customers, not vanity metrics.
Hands-on social media for independent restaurants.
A restaurant social media marketing agency runs the content, posting, and community work that turns Instagram and other feeds into people in your seats. The point isn’t a big follower count or viral fame. It’s making a hungry person nearby stop scrolling, see your food, and decide tonight is the night.
At 86 Empty Seats, restaurant social media management is handled hands-on by a former NYC chef who knows what makes a plate look crave-worthy and what makes a guest choose you. We don’t run staged photo or video shoots. Instead, we coach you and your team on capturing the real day-to-day, your specials, your staff, the community events you’re part of, then turn that raw material into a consistent, on-brand feed. The focus stays on outcomes you can feel on the floor, covers and table turns, and on showing the neighborhood that you belong to it.
One service, or everything
Just want social media? Or all of it?
Either one works. If you just want social media, that’s all we’ll do, so reach out and we’ll price it on its own. Most restaurants find one piece only gets them so far, though, so if you’d rather hand off your whole marketing, that’s our one plan: everything done for you at the price you see here. You’re never locked in.
Website
Branding
Local SEO
Social
EmailSound familiar?
Is your social media working as hard as your kitchen?
Posting falls to the bottom of the list
Service runs long, the day disappears, and the feed goes quiet for weeks. Customers notice an abandoned account, and it can make a busy restaurant look closed.
It looks nothing like your food
Dim phone photos and scattered posts don’t do your plates justice. If the feed doesn’t look appetizing, neither does the reservation.
Followers, but no covers
Likes and follows feel good and pay nothing. Without a plan to turn attention into bookings, social media is just another time sink.
Invisible to nearby locals
Posting with no location tags, no local angle, and the wrong hashtags means the people most likely to actually walk in never see you.
Good restaurant social media isn’t about chasing trends or going viral. It’s steady, on-brand content that keeps your room top of mind, handled for you so it never goes dark.
Why it matters
Guests decide with their thumbs
Before they ever taste your food, most customers meet your restaurant on a screen. How you show up there increasingly decides whether they show up at all.
of diners have tried a restaurant for the first time because of its social media
of diners who follow a restaurant on social are more likely to visit or order
of Gen Z diners have used social media to choose a restaurant
What’s included
What does our restaurant social media management include?
Social that fills tables is a handful of moving parts pointed at one outcome: more nearby patrons choosing you tonight. Here’s what we handle, and why each piece moves covers.
Content direction & a simple shot list
We don’t parachute in a film crew. We give your team an easy shot list for the specials, the staff, and the regulars, so you capture the real day-to-day on a phone. Authentic footage beats a staged shoot every time.
Editing, curation & a content library
We turn the photos and clips you send into a polished, on-brand feed, and build a library so you’re never scrambling for something to post. Social media management for restaurants lives or dies on the visuals, so we make your real footage look its best.
Consistent posting & scheduling
A planned, steady calendar across Instagram, Facebook, and whatever platforms matter for you, so your feed never goes quiet during a busy stretch. You get a restaurant social media manager who keeps it running.
Restaurant Instagram management
From Stories and Reels to the grid and the bio links, your restaurant Instagram management is handled end to end, with local tags and the kind of posts that nudge someone from scrolling to booking.
Community storytelling
Social isn’t only promotion. We help you show the neighborhood you’re part of it, your team, your regulars, the local events you join, so the people nearby feel like they already belong at your table.
Local creator & influencer partnerships
We find the local food creators worth knowing, set up comped visits, and brief them on your story. We coordinate it remotely and don’t run the shoot, so a trusted local voice puts your room in front of a nearby audience ready to book.
Captions, replies & on-brand voice
Captions and comment replies written in your restaurant’s voice, not generic filler. Our restaurant social media services answer your community like a host works the room and keep the tone unmistakably you.
A feed full of life is a standing invitation to the whole neighborhood.
How it works
How does our restaurant social media management work?
No chasing trends for the sake of it. As a hands-on restaurant social media agency, we direct, edit, and post around what actually fills your tables. You capture the real moments during service; we turn them into a feed that works. You always deal directly with the founder.
- 1
Discover
We get to know your food, your room, and your regulars, and lock in a look and a voice for the feed that’s unmistakably yours.
- 2
Capture
We give you a dead-simple shot list and quick pointers, then your team grabs the real day-to-day on a phone, the specials, the staff, the community events you’re part of. We build it all into a content library.
- 3
Plan
We build a content calendar around your slow shifts, your specials, and the local moments worth posting, so every post has a job to do.
- 4
Post
We publish consistently, tag locally, and keep the feed alive, then jump on comments and messages so nothing sits ignored.
- 5
Refine
We watch what’s resonating and do more of it. We’ll set up basic Google Analytics if you don’t have it, but we keep the focus on covers, not vanity dashboards.
The first 90 days, then ongoing
What makes restaurant social media actually work?
Most restaurant accounts post too rarely, too randomly, and with food that doesn’t look like much. The ones that fill seats do a handful of unglamorous things well, over and over. This is where we spend our time.
- Real beats polished. You don’t need a film crew. Honest phone photos and clips of your actual food, team, and room out-perform glossy staged shoots, because guests can tell the difference.
- Consistency over virality. Showing up steadily beats one lucky viral post. A reliable feed keeps you top of mind for the night someone finally decides to book a table.
- Local, not global. A restaurant doesn’t need a million followers. It needs the few thousand people who live and work nearby. Location tags and local hashtags matter more than raw reach.
- Engagement is hospitality. Replying to comments and DMs quickly is just good service moved online. It builds the relationships that turn casual followers into regulars.
- Show that you’re part of the neighborhood. Your team, your regulars, the local events you join. People follow restaurants for the feeling of belonging, and locals choose the place that feels like part of their community.
- Tie it back to a booking. Every profile and post should make the next step obvious: a link to reserve, to the menu, to directions. Attention is only worth what it converts.
That’s the difference between a restaurant social media agency that grows a number and one that grows your covers. We care about the second kind. The work is steady and unglamorous: you capture the real moments, we shape them into a consistent feed, we talk to your community, and we always point people toward a table.
And because it’s handled hands-on by someone who has worked the line and run the floor, the feed sounds like a restaurant, not a marketing department. That authenticity is exactly what makes a nearby guest trust you enough to walk in.
Ready to turn scrolling into covers?
Tell us about your restaurant and the people you serve. We’ll show you what a feed built to fill seats could look like. No pressure, no jargon.
Who’s behind it
Led by a chef who has run real restaurants
86 Empty Seats is led by founder Daniel Ruiz, who came up the hard way: from line cook all the way to chef in New York City, then into running operations, franchises, corporate dining, and catering for big-city rooms. He’s helped develop franchises and knows the math of a full floor from the inside.
When you hire 86 Empty Seats, you get Daniel himself, and he stays hands-on. He’s your single point of contact and the person actually doing the work, not a name on a proposal who passes you to a junior account manager. When a project genuinely calls for a specialist, a developer, a designer, an illustrator, he brings in vetted people he trusts and runs the work alongside them.
That operator’s instinct is the edge. Your marketing isn’t shaped by someone guessing at what your guests want. It’s built on years of covers, table turns, and slow Tuesdays. Daniel also publishes Sobremesa Press, a food publication with real editorial reach, wrote “Cook by Feel,” a book on cooking with instinct over rigid recipes, and co-founded Crewli, an operations app built for how restaurants run.
Questions
Restaurant social media FAQs
How much does restaurant social media management cost?
We get the best results by running your whole marketing, not one piece in isolation, because the parts feed each other and that’s what fills your seats. So our main offer is one simple package: $995 a month per restaurant, done for you, with no setup fee and no contract, covering everything under the marketing umbrella, social media included. If you’d rather focus on just social for now, reach out and we’ll talk through what you need.
Which platforms do you manage?
Instagram first, since that’s where food lives, plus Facebook and any other platform that genuinely fits your guests. We’d rather do two platforms well than spread you thin across five that don’t pay off.
Do you shoot the photos and videos?
No, and that’s on purpose. We don’t run staged shoots. We give you and your team a simple shot list and coaching on what to capture during service, the specials, the staff, the community moments, and you grab it on a phone day to day. Then we turn that raw material into a polished, consistent feed. Real footage of your actual restaurant always beats a staged agency shoot.
Will you guarantee a certain number of followers or views?
No, and be wary of anyone who does. Guaranteed follower counts are vanity, often bought, and they don’t fill tables. We focus on local reach and turning attention into covers.
Do you handle restaurant Instagram management specifically?
Yes, end to end. Restaurant Instagram management means your grid, Stories, Reels, bio links, and replies are all handled, kept on-brand, and aimed at getting nearby customers through the door.
I barely have time. How involved do I need to be?
Very little. A kickoff to align on look and voice, the occasional heads-up about a special or event, and we run the rest. The whole point is to take it off your plate.
Do you run paid social ads?
We can set up and advise on simple local boosts when they make sense, but organic, local content is the foundation. We won’t push ad spend that doesn’t put people in your seats.
Do you do influencer marketing too?
Yes, the local kind that actually fills seats. We source and vet nearby food creators, arrange comped visits, and brief them on what to feature, so real local voices send their followers your way. We coordinate the partnerships and don’t stage the shoots. We steer clear of far-flung influencers with big numbers and no nearby followers, because they don’t put anyone in your seats.
Let’s fill the feed, and the room
A feed that looks as good as your food is how nearby locals find you. Book a call and we’ll map exactly how we’d turn your social into covers.