How do I get my restaurant recommended by ChatGPT?
Diners now ask for a time, a party size and what everyone can eat, and an AI agent recommends the restaurants it can check against all three. The menu and the rules are facts you write once; the table at half seven is a live fact only your booking system holds.
5 min read
Two kinds of fact
Every part of that request is something the AI agent has to confirm before it names you, and it would rather name two places it can confirm than five it can't. The parts fall into two kinds. Some are fixed: whether there's a proper vegan main, how gluten-free dishes are prepared, whether dogs are welcome in the bar. Others are live: whether a table for four is free at half seven on that Saturday.
Our pieces on what "a table for four at eight" is really asking for, and on the group booking that isn't just a table, go deeper on the booking itself.
The fixed facts, written once
A fixed fact only helps if an AI agent can read it and quote it with confidence. Put your menu and prices on a web page as text, so nothing important sits only in a PDF or a photo of the specials board. Then answer the questions diners actually ask, one sentence each: how many vegan mains there are, how gluten-free dishes are prepared and kept separate, whether children have their own menu, whether dogs are welcome and where, whether there's step-free access, and the last booking time on a Sunday. Keep each answer the same everywhere it appears, because two versions of the truth give an AI agent a reason to pick somewhere else.
The live fact, every fifteen minutes
A table for four is free at six, gone at half seven and free again at nine, so the answer changes through the evening and lives in your booking system. If an AI agent can't check it, it either leaves you out or names you with no way to book, and the diner goes somewhere it could confirm.
At the time of writing, ChatGPT works with OpenTable for tables, and with Resy and Yelp in the US. If you use one of those, you may already be reachable there. Many UK restaurants use other systems, ResDiary among them, or their own, and for those the AI agent has no view of tonight's tables unless the system is connected another way.
What to do this week
Move your menu off PDF and onto a page as text, then rewrite your dietary information as plain answers. Next, find out which system holds your tables tonight and ask its provider directly: can it share live table availability with AI assistants, and would a booking made that way arrive like any other, with your deposit rules applied?
Where Selfe fits
The table at half seven, the set menu for twelve and the deposit you take for both are yours to decide. Your Selfe connects the reservations system you already use so that an AI agent can check a time and party size against your real availability, on the terms you've set, in whichever assistant the diner happens to be using. Through Visit Keswick, Fellpack's real-time table availability is already readable by an AI agent through ResDiary.
We're mostly walk-ins. Does this matter?
Being recommended still matters, because diners check opening hours, menus, dogs and children before they set off. The booking route matters less if you don't take bookings, so concentrate on the fixed facts.
Should I switch to OpenTable to be bookable in ChatGPT?
Not for that reason alone. Choose your booking system for how it runs your restaurant. Getting the system you already use connected is usually the better route to being reachable in more than one assistant.
Can ChatGPT book a room or a table at my place?
Sometimes, depending on which booking system you use and which route an AI agent can reach. Through a platform's app it often can; directly with you, only when your own booking system can share live availability and accept the booking.
Restaurants, pubs and the booking that isn't just a table.
A table booking for twelve people celebrating a 40th birthday is not the same transaction as a table for two, and treating it that way is where the booking usually goes wrong.
What "a table for four at eight" is actually asking for.
A customer request contains the variables that determine whether an offer is possible. Treating it as a loose search loses the information needed to give a trustworthy commercial answer.
Why doesn't ChatGPT mention my business?
ChatGPT, like any AI agent answering a detailed question, names the few places it can check against every part of it. When it leaves you out, it usually couldn't confirm enough about you, most often whether you're free and what you cost on the day in question.