Do delivery-platform listings help guests discover a restaurant?

Delivery-platform listings can help people discover and order from your restaurant inside those platforms. They can also provide another public source of venue information. They do not guarantee that ChatGPT or Google's AI features will recommend you. Join or improve a marketplace because it serves a useful ordering occasion at an acceptable cost, then keep its menu, hours, identity and links accurate.

This guide uses UK platform, contract and legal examples where stated. US operators should verify their local terms and obligations; the operating process can be adapted to each venue.

For a restaurant group, the decision is local. A site with spare takeaway capacity may benefit from delivery demand. A dining room selling a carefully timed tasting menu may need a reservation route instead. A group-wide account does not make those occasions interchangeable.

Which kind of discovery are you trying to improve?

Separate three guest journeys before comparing platforms:

A delivery listing can be useful for the first two. Sending a dine-in guest to a delivery menu can leave them without the information they need. Match each public link to the occasion, even when the same restaurant offers all three.

Deliveroo's UK partner page describes access to customers through its app. DoorDash's merchant FAQ distinguishes its marketplace from direct online ordering through a restaurant website. Those are distribution choices with different operating and commercial terms, not interchangeable forms of AI-search optimisation.

Does being listed guarantee AI recommendations?

No. A public listing may be available as a source, but availability is not selection. An assistant may consult other pages, answer without mentioning the restaurant or return a different branch.

Google's AI-feature documentation says that AI Overviews and AI Mode apply existing search requirements and best practices. There is no special listing purchase that creates eligibility. OpenAI's search guidance likewise describes multiple relevance and reliability factors; it does not promise recommendations to marketplace partners.

Treat the listing as one factual surface. If an AI answer links to it, check whether the branch, menu, hours and order destination are right. Do not assume that increasing the number of listings increases recommendations. Extra pages with stale information can create more corrections for your team.

For a broader view of how pages and venue information fit together, use the restaurant-group discoverability checklist.

How do marketplaces decide which restaurants appear?

Start with each platform's own explanation. Marketplace position and AI recommendations are different systems.

Deliveroo's visibility guidance describes customer ordering history, similar customers' behavior, ratings, estimated order duration and sponsored adverts. Its Marketer guidance also makes access to promotional tools dependent on operational performance. An advertisement is not a substitute for accepting orders and fulfilling them reliably.

Uber Eats' UK merchant terms describe the marketplace service, fees and sponsored listings. Check your signed agreement and the relevant product conditions. Do not import a percentage from an American pricing article into a UK budget.

These provider documents explain their own products. They are useful for the controls your team can manage, but they are not independent evidence of the return your restaurant will achieve.

What needs to be correct on every listing?

Make someone responsible for each venue, with a group-level process for checking the facts. The work is more specific than copying the group homepage into every profile.

• Venue identity: public name, branch, address and appropriate concept.
• Service hours: when delivery and pickup are available, including holidays and temporary closures.
• Menu availability: current items, prices, descriptions and sold-out behavior.
• Order destination: the correct branch and service, tested on a phone.
• Practical instructions: collection location and any information the guest needs before ordering.
• Allergen information: maintained through the appropriate food-safety process, not guessed by marketing software.

The UK food-delivery guidance explains the need for clear online menus and allergen information. GOV.UK's takeaway allergen guidance describes information before purchase and at delivery. A menu change must reach the delivery listing as well as the restaurant website.

The Food Standards Agency's updated out-of-home guidance encourages written allergen information alongside a conversation. Keep food-safety information under the venue's responsible process. An AI-generated dish description is not an approved allergen record.

What should you do about unwanted Google ordering links?

Inspect the public Business Profile rather than assuming the links match your current contracts. Google's local-business link guidance says that some third-party links can appear automatically through partners or automated information.

Where more than one action link is available, Google lets a business set a preferred link. Choose the destination that serves the guest and the intended transaction. Test the selected URL from a mobile device, including the branch and collection or delivery choice.

For a third-party link you want removed, follow the current removal instructions and retain the request. Google's guidance says providers must remove third-party links within five days of receiving a removal request and gives a route for reporting a failure. Google’s published five-day removal process is shown for booking links. For a food-ordering link, first use the Pickup and delivery controls; if the relevant option is unavailable, use the current ordering support route.

Do not turn off all ordering options just to hide one obsolete link without checking the effect. Google's guidance says disabling “Accept orders on your profile” hides first-party and third-party ordering links. That may also remove a route your team wants to keep.

How do you judge whether delivery orders are worth the cost?

Use the contract and settlement statement, not the advertised order value alone. Uber Eats' UK terms describe the marketplace fee calculation using the item retail price, including VAT, multiplied by the applicable percentage. The rate and further conditions come from your agreement.

Build a per-order view with the finance and operations team:

Do not publish a universal commission rate or margin threshold. Uber Eats' UK pricing page sets out product-specific terms; DoorDash's US FAQ describes a different market and product set. A group with sites in several countries should keep those terms separate.

For prices shown to guests, the CMA's price-transparency guidance explains the need to include unavoidable charges. Check the full ordering journey a guest sees before payment. A correct menu-item price is not enough if the total becomes unexpectedly different at checkout.

Which evidence should you use to assess a listing?

Look at the result in its own system before connecting it to another channel. An increase in delivery orders is evidence about delivery orders. It does not prove that an assistant recommended the restaurant or that dine-in bookings increased.

Choose a defined venue and period, then record:

1. Orders received, accepted, completed and refunded.
2. The settlement and costs relevant to those orders.
3. Service availability, preparation time and operational errors.
4. Any paid promotion and the dates it ran.
5. Public listing accuracy and the mobile ordering journey.
6. Separately, any observed AI answer that names the correct venue and cites the listing.

When you compare periods, note changed opening hours, menu, promotions and capacity. A busier month with a large funded offer is not a clean test of listing accuracy. Use observations to decide what to investigate, rather than crediting every order to one change.

The existing bookings-measurement guide explains why recommendations, visits and reservations need separate records. Apply the same discipline to delivery: an assistant mention, a menu visit and a completed order are separate facts.

What should a restaurant group do first?

Choose a venue that has a real delivery or pickup offer. Check its contract, current listing, opening hours and menu with the local team. Test the route from Google and the venue website to the actual order destination. Resolve an incorrect branch, obsolete link or stale menu before spending on promotion.

Then agree a review period and assess completed orders, operational capacity and settlement. Keep a listing that serves guests and the business; change or remove one that no longer matches the service. For AI discovery, check actual guest-style answers and their sources rather than counting how many platforms carry the name.

A free AI-search audit can help identify which venue information assistants currently find. The platform decision still belongs to your restaurant's offer, costs and ability to fulfil the order.

Sources

1. Deliveroo's UK partner page.
2. DoorDash's merchant FAQ.
3. AI-feature documentation.
4. OpenAI's search guidance.
5. Deliveroo's visibility guidance.
6. Marketer guidance.
7. Uber Eats' UK merchant terms.
8. UK food-delivery guidance.
9. GOV.UK's takeaway allergen guidance.
10. Food Standards Agency's updated out-of-home guidance.
11. Google's local-business link guidance.
12. Uber Eats' UK pricing page.
13. CMA's price-transparency guidance.