TLDR
- In booteek's sample of 30,948 five-star English Google reviews at 1,557 UK restaurants and bars (measured September 2026), almost a third (32%) named a dish or a drink. Those lines are your best marketing copy.
- You can quote a genuine review on your website, menu, social feeds and print, as long as you quote it accurately and the overall picture isn't misleading.
- Ask every guest for a review, never only the happy ones. Google and Tripadvisor ban offering anything in return, and since 6 April 2025 UK law has banned fake reviews and hiding the bad ones.
Can restaurant and bar owners use customer reviews in their marketing?
Nothing in the Google, Tripadvisor or CMA rules we read forbids it, as long as the quote is accurate and the overall picture isn't misleading. Crediting the guest and the platform is our recommendation.
That last condition got sharper on 6 April 2025. From that date the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 banned fake reviews outright in the UK. It also banned publishing reviews "in a misleading way", which includes showing the good ones while hiding the bad.
Take a bar with a chalkboard by the door. On a Friday someone chalks up a guest's line about the espresso martinis, and a regular posts it to Instagram. Nobody has asked the question owners eventually ask: am I allowed to do this?
This guide answers that for the five places owners use reviews, and for what AI assistants can do with them.
Which customer reviews make the best marketing material?
The best review to quote names something you serve. A line that says "the lamb shoulder was worth the trip" does more work than "great food, lovely staff", because it tells the next guest what to order and why this place and not the one next door.
We measured how often that happens. In booteek's analysis of 30,948 five-star English Google reviews at 1,557 UK restaurants and bars (measured September 2026), almost a third (32%) named a dish or a drink: a pizza, a Sunday roast, a pint, a negroni. The figure is a floor. It counts only names on a fixed list, and leaves out generic words such as "food", "drinks" and "brunch".
Here is what the data does not show. It doesn't prove that quoting a review on your menu or website brings in a single extra cover. The sample is also a sample, Manchester-heavy, and it is not a census of every UK venue.
What it does show is where the raw material is.
Two tests pick out the reviews worth using:
- It names something. A dish, a drink, a room, an occasion. "The Sunday roast with the Yorkshire puddings the size of a fist" beats "amazing roast". Keep the guest's own words, odd ones included, because a polished line reads as if you wrote it.
- It's recent. A review of a dish you dropped last spring sends the next guest looking for something that has gone.
"Came for one drink, stayed for the cheese board and three more. Best Tuesday night we've had all year."
That hypothetical review would work on a menu, a table card and a social post. It names what was served, and it tells a story in two sentences.
One warning before you go looking for more lines like it. Google's review content policy says merchants must not "request that specific content be included" when they ask for reviews. So quote the guests who name the dish of their own accord. Don't ask guests to mention it.
Can I use this review on my website, menu, social feeds or in print?
The short answer is yes in every channel below, with a different condition attached to each. The table sets out the rule and the source for each one.
| Where | Can you use the review? | The rule | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your website | Yes, quoted as text | Don't put Google or Tripadvisor ratings into your own review markup. If you show your rating, you count as a publisher of reviews and need a written policy against fake ones. | Google review snippet guidelines and CMA fake reviews guidance |
| Menu and table cards | Yes | Quote accurately, credit the platform (our recommendation), and don't hand-pick lines to suggest a picture the full reviews contradict. | DMCC Act 2024, Schedule 20 |
| Social media | Yes | Same rule. A screenshot is the safest form because it can't be misquoted. Never offer free products for five-star reviews (a CMA example of a banned practice). Tripadvisor also bans prize-draw entries. | CMA fake reviews guidance and Tripadvisor review guidelines |
| Google Business Profile | The reviews already show there | Your job here is to reply and to ask every guest equally. Google makes you responsible for the legality of anything you post. | Google posts content policy and Google tips to get more reviews |
| Print, signs and flyers | Yes | Same as the menu. Date it or refresh it, because a printed quote can outlive the dish it praises. | DMCC Act 2024, Schedule 20 |
There is one gap in that table, and it's better to state it than to guess. None of the Google, Tripadvisor or CMA pages we read says you need the reviewer's permission to quote a public review. We still recommend asking when a review is personal, and crediting a first name and initial, never a full name.
Tripadvisor is harder to call. We found no Tripadvisor page setting out the terms for quoting its reviews or using its logo on your own material. Until you've read those terms yourself, quote Tripadvisor reviews as plain text credited to the platform, and leave its logo off.
How do you put reviews on your website without breaking Google's rules?
Show the review as plain text on the page, credited and dated, and link to your full Google profile so visitors can read the rest. Keep third-party star ratings out of your structured data.
Google's review snippet guidelines say "Don't aggregate reviews or ratings from other websites." They go further for a local business. If a business's reviews of itself sit on its own website, "either directly in their structured data or through an embedded third-party widget (for example, Google Business reviews or Facebook reviews widget)", that page is ineligible for the star review feature. So a Google reviews widget on your homepage won't earn you stars in search. Show the rating as text a person can read, and leave the markup out.
The second rule comes from the regulator. The CMA's fake reviews guidance treats a business that displays its Google rating on its own website as a publisher of reviews. It says even a small trader needs "reasonable and proportionate" steps, and that every publisher needs "a clear policy" on preventing and removing banned reviews.
For an independent restaurant or bar, that policy can be a short paragraph on your reviews page:
- We never write, buy or commission reviews, and we don't ask our team to post them.
- We never offer anything in exchange for a review.
- The rating shown here is taken from our Google profile, and you can read every review there.
It costs nothing to publish. A short paragraph like this is a starting point, not the whole duty. The CMA also expects you to check the risks and take proportionate steps.
How can you use reviews on your menu, in print and on social media?
Pick the specific line, quote it exactly, credit the guest and the platform, and swap it out when the dish or drink changes. The same four moves work for a menu, a table card, a sign and a social post.
On the menu. One short quote beside the dish it names is enough. "The chilli crab linguine, ordered twice in one sitting" next to the linguine does more than a box of praise at the bottom of the page. Credit it simply: "Hannah R., Google review".
On table cards and signs. Two or three quotes at most, and each one should name something the guest can order today. A framed quote by the bar about a cocktail you stopped making last year is a small lie in a nice frame.
On social media. A screenshot is the cleanest format, because it shows the guest's words and the platform together. Add a caption in your own voice and thank the guest by first name.
On Google Business Profile. Reviews already sit next to your profile in Maps and Search, so re-posting them there adds little. What adds something is the reply. A reply that picks up the dish the guest named, in a sentence or two, puts a second, specific line under the review for the next person to read. Our review response templates show how to do that without sounding scripted.
Two edits are never acceptable, whatever the channel. Don't trim a sentence so that it changes meaning, turning "the steak was nearly perfect, shame about the chips" into "the steak was nearly perfect". And don't stitch two reviews into one quote. Both would publish a review in a misleading way, which would risk breaching the 2024 Act.
What do AI assistants read about your restaurant or bar?
No AI assistant publishes which sources it reads for a local question. Reviews and your replies are public on your profile, so treat specific reviews as worth having, never as a promise of how an assistant will use them.
The use is growing fast in BrightLocal's 2026 survey. In its 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey of 1,002 US adults, 45% said they used ChatGPT or other AI tools for local recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier. In the same survey, 97% said they read online reviews of local businesses. Both figures are US only. We found no equivalent UK survey.
What that means is modest. A review that says "great place" gives an assistant nothing to repeat. A review that says "the best Sunday roast in Chorlton, and the Yorkshires are huge" gives it a dish, a place and a reason. The 32% finding above suggests many of your five-star reviews already carry that kind of detail.
Google's own local ranking help page says "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking." It does not say replies change your ranking. And no one outside the AI companies can tell you how a given assistant weighs one review against another. For how Google and Tripadvisor compare as sources, see our guide to Google reviews versus Tripadvisor.
How do you get more reviews worth quoting, without breaking the rules?
Ask every guest, in the same way, with a link or a QR code, and offer nothing in return. That is the whole method, and it is what Google, Tripadvisor and the UK regulator all allow.
Google's tips to get more reviews say you can ask customers to visit a Google link or scan a QR code, and the page shows you how to create both. A QR code on the bill folder or the receipt reaches every table equally, which is exactly the point.
The CMA's guidance says "merely emailing customers generally to ask if they wish to provide a review, is not prohibited". What it flags is cherry-picking, including "encouraging just those who are satisfied to leave reviews". In plain terms: you can ask every customer for a review, but you can't ask only the happy ones.
The platforms go further than the law in three places:
- Incentives. Google bans offering "payment, discounts, free of cost goods and/or services" for a review. Tripadvisor bans offering anything for a review, even a free drink or a prize-draw entry.
- Pressure on the premises. Google says merchants "should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises". So hand over the QR code with the bill, and don't stand at the table while a guest types.
- Staff targets. Google bans asking staff to collect a set number of reviews, or reviews that name a staff member. Tripadvisor treats a bonus for being mentioned in a review as a violation too.
Break the Tripadvisor rules and you risk ranking penalties or a red warning badge on your listing. Google can stop a profile receiving new reviews for a set period and show diners a warning that fake reviews were removed.
What should restaurant and bar owners never do with reviews?
Never fake, buy, filter or reward reviews, and never publish them in a way that misleads. Each of these breaks the platforms' rules, and most now break UK law as well.
The list, in plain terms:
- Don't write reviews or ask your team, family or friends to. The CMA's guidance says asking a member of staff to write a review can count as commissioning one.
- Don't filter who you ask. A feedback form that sends happy guests to Google and unhappy ones to a private inbox is what Tripadvisor calls review gating, and Google calls selectively soliciting positive reviews. Both ban it.
- Don't trade anything for a review, or for changing or removing a bad one. The CMA gives a refund or gift card offered in exchange for a changed review as one of its own examples of a banned practice.
- Don't edit a quote to change its meaning, or show only the praise while claiming it's the full picture.
- Don't pay a service that promises reviews. Buying or commissioning fake reviews is banned outright under the 2024 Act.
If you believe a review is fake, report it rather than argue with it in public. Our guide to what to do about fake reviews covers the Google and Tripadvisor steps.
Where does booteek fit?
booteek is an AI agent for independent restaurant and bar owners. It works with you on your Google Business Profile over several weeks, and it drafts review replies that you edit and post yourself.
It won't choose the quotes for your menu, and it can't make any AI assistant name your venue. What it costs is on the pricing page.
Your next step needs one sitting. Open your Google profile, sort by newest, and copy out every five-star review from the last three months that names something you still serve. That list is your menu quotes, your table cards and your next month of social posts.
Where do these figures come from?
- booteek review study, five-star reviews (booteek, measured September 2026). The sample is 30,948 five-star Google reviews written in English, at 1,557 UK restaurants and bars, captured between January and September 2026 from public Google review pages by booteek's own data collection. A review counts when it names a dish or a drink from a fixed list, and generic words such as "food" and "drinks" are left out, so almost a third (32%) is a floor. The data is a sample of each venue's reviews, not a census of UK venues, and it is Manchester-heavy. It does not show that quoting a review brings in more guests.
- Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (BrightLocal, 11 February 2026) — the 45% who used AI tools for local recommendations, up from 6%, and the 97% who read online reviews. The sample is 1,002 US adults, with no UK sample, about local businesses in general. BrightLocal survey
- Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, Schedule 20 (UK Parliament, in force 6 April 2025) — the ban on fake reviews and on publishing reviews in a misleading way. Schedule 20 on legislation.gov.uk
- Fake reviews guidance, CMA208 (Competition and Markets Authority, 4 April 2025) — a business showing its rating counts as a publisher of reviews, needs a clear policy, and may ask every customer but must not ask just the satisfied ones. Also the examples on staff reviews, on free products offered for five-star reviews, and on refunds offered for a changed review. CMA guidance on gov.uk
- Review snippet guidelines (Google Search Central, undated live page, read 28 September 2026) — no ratings taken from other websites, and no star feature for a business's own reviews shown on its own site. Google review snippet guidelines
- Google Maps review content policy (Google, undated live page, read September 2026) — no requests for specific content, no incentives, no pressure on the premises, no staff targets, no asking only for positive reviews. Google review content policy
- Business Profile restrictions for policy violations (Google, undated live page, read September 2026) — Google can stop new reviews for a set period and show a warning that fake reviews were removed. Google profile restrictions
- Tips to get more reviews (Google, undated live page, read September 2026) — asking customers through a Google link or a QR code. Google tips to get more reviews
- Posts content policy (Google, undated live page, read 28 September 2026) — the business is responsible for the legality of what it posts. Google posts content policy
- Local ranking tips (Google, undated live page, read September 2026) — "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking". Google local ranking help
- Review guidelines (Tripadvisor, undated live page, read September 2026) — the bans on incentives down to prize-draw entries, review gating and staff bonuses, and the ranking penalties and red badges. Tripadvisor review guidelines