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A 60-minute walk through the library — the articles, tools, and sheets in the order they build on each other — so you leave with a plan instead of a pile of open tabs.

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Browse by what you’re fixing

9 topic pillars.

• Local SEO & discoveryGoogle Business Profile, schema, reviews
• Conversions & reservationsWhere dinners leak, and the fix
• Operations & marginDelivery, pricing, prime cost
• Trust & reviewsReviews, photos, response systems
• Brand & designTone, type, palette, photography
• Speed & mobileLoad time, mobile, Core Web Vitals
• Information securityTools, data tiers, vendors
• AI search & citationChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews
• Cost data & sourcesThe public agencies behind the Index

Every library article

Browse the library.

Evergreen reference, organized by topic. Each piece answers a real operator question and is updated when the answer changes — not when the calendar flips.

Local SEO & discovery (5)

• How to Read Your Restaurant's Google Search Console (in Plain English)

  The four reports that matter, what each number means, and the three weekly habits that actually move bookings.

• How to Set Up Google Business Profile for Your Restaurant

  A step-by-step guide to claiming, verifying, and optimizing Google Business Profile for your restaurant — categories, photos, menu links, and the settings mo…

• My Restaurant Isn’t on Google Maps: The 10-Minute Diagnostic

  Four causes cover 100% of map-pack-invisibility cases I’ve diagnosed across ~50 DMV restaurants. Unclaimed listing (40%), wrong primary category (30%), suspe…

• Restaurant Schema Markup: The 6 Types Google Actually Uses

  The six schema.org types that actually matter for restaurant search results in 2026, with copy-paste JSON-LD examples for each.

• Restaurant Website Technical SEO Checklist (2026): The Operator’s Audit

  The technical SEO checklist for restaurant websites in 2026: page speed, mobile, schema, robots, sitemap — the audit you can run yourself.

Operations & margin (11)

• An honest DoorDash math for independent restaurants

  The actual math behind a DoorDash order at an independent DMV restaurant in 2026 — commission, payment processing, packaging, food cost, labor, the mar…

• Does My Restaurant Need a Website? The Honest Answer

  The honest answer to whether your restaurant needs its own website in 2026 — from someone who is a restaurant operator and builds websites for others. When a…

• How Much Does a Custom Restaurant Website Cost?

  Custom restaurant website costs in 2026, itemized line by line — from $2,500 to $15,000+. Real numbers, real tradeoffs, and what nobody else is saying.

• How to Raise Restaurant Menu Prices Without Losing Reservations

  The honest playbook for raising menu prices on an independent restaurant's website — which items to raise, how to stage it, and the website moves tha…

• Loyalty Programs for Independent Restaurants: What Actually Pays

  Four models, one restaurant, twelve months. Paper punch cards return 75:1; standalone platforms return 1.17:1. The CRM-direct path returns 7x the punch card …

• Service charges vs tipping: the operator's math

  Three compensation models compared on the same $200 dinner check. Server take-home varies $9, operator net varies $7. The customer pays roughly the same all …

• Should Your Restaurant Actually Make an App?

  Every month a new agency pitches an independent restaurant a $20K app. Here's the honest answer to whether you need one — and the three cheaper tools that de…

• Toast vs. Square vs. Clover: which POS integrates best?

  An honest comparison of how Toast, Square, and Clover — the three dominant restaurant POS systems — integrate with a real restaurant website. What each one d…

• Uber Eats vs DoorDash vs Grubhub: the honest math for independent restaurants

  The headline 30% commission looks identical across all three platforms. The second-layer fee stack — sponsored listings, Pro membership, communication fee — …

• When to Rebuild Your Restaurant Website: A Decision Framework

  A seven-question decision framework for the rebuild question, with three case threads showing what each answer actually changes.

• Restaurant Menu Engineering (2026): The Math Behind Which Dishes Make Money

  Restaurant menu engineering, plainly: plate cost, edible portion, yield, mix, and the elasticity tests that fix margin without raising headline prices.

Conversions & reservations (3)

• The Restaurant Photo Spec Sheet: Every Image Size for Every Surface

  Every image size, aspect ratio, and resolution your restaurant actually needs across GBP, Yelp, OG, and menu thumbnails — in one spec sheet.

• What should be on a restaurant website? The 7 pages that matter.

  The seven pages every restaurant website actually needs — and what belongs on each one. No filler, no blog-about-blogs. A structural guide for owners plannin…

• Why Your Restaurant Loses Reservations Every Night

  A real reservation-loss funnel — the six places your site is quietly leaking intent-driven diners, what each leak costs in dollars, and the fix for every one.

Trust & reviews (3)

• How to Get More Google Reviews for Your Restaurant

  A proven system for getting more Google reviews — QR postcards, timing, staff scripts, and the one thing most owners skip.

• How to Respond to Google Reviews: A Restaurant Operator’s Playbook

  Four review archetypes, four response shapes. What to write, what to never write, and how AI Overviews now lift review responses into the cited paragraph. Te…

• Restaurant Website Legal & Trust Essentials (2026): ToS, Privacy, Cookies, SSL

  The legal + trust layer of a restaurant website in 2026: ToS, privacy policy, cookie banner, SSL, footer-year, and the breach plan to keep ready.

AI search & visibility (3)

• Can ChatGPT write your restaurant website? (And should it?)

  An honest look at what AI can and can't write for an independent restaurant website. The specific places ChatGPT gets it wrong, the places it can save you re…

• Diners can book inside Google's AI answer now — make sure it's your table

  Google's AI Mode can now complete a reservation through OpenTable, Resy, or Tock. How to get into the agentic flow — and why 65% of diners still prefer to bo…

• How to Get Your Restaurant Cited in Google’s AI Overviews

  Search results are now a paragraph Google wrote, citing two or three sources. Five paragraph-level moves that get a restaurant lifted into the answer box — a…

Brand & design (2)

• Wix vs Custom for Restaurants

  An honest comparison of Wix and a custom-built restaurant website. Six places Wix runs out of room, the ROI math that makes the switch worth it, and when Wix…

• Restaurant Brand System (2026): Colors, Typography & the Logo That Travels

  The restaurant brand system that travels from menu to awning to Instagram — colors, typography, logo lockups, and what’s worth paying a designer for.

Information security (2)

• How to Tell If a Restaurant Tool Is Safe

  A 5-test framework + 4-tier data model + a worked example. Verifiable in your own browser, under a minute per test.

• Privacy-Forward Restaurant Bookkeeping: What a Digital Ledger Should Never Do

  The five things a restaurant’s digital ledger should never do with your numbers — and how to verify each one yourself.

What’s newest

Recent commentary.

• Overview · May 11, 2026

  The May 2026 Wave: nine pieces, one operating thesis

  An overview of this week’s batch — AI Overview citation, schema markup, Google Maps invisibility, review responses, Instagram-as-SEO, three-platform delivery math, the 30-day playbook, loyalty programs, and service charges. Start here.

  6 min

• Op-ed · May 2, 2026

  An honest DoorDash math for independent restaurants

  Two side-by-side margin walks on a $42 ticket. The $4.42-per-order marginal lift, and the three-change website fix.

  7 min

• Research · May 2, 2026

  DMV restaurant GBP audit, 2026 — the 100 highest-rated restaurants graded

  Eight scoring dimensions. Median 5.4/8. The most-skipped field is the cheapest mistake to prevent.

  9 min

All commentary → · All library articles →

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5. If you spot something stale, don@muntin.digital — corrections land in /changelog/ within two business days.