What every new restaurant owner needs to know about online reviews and promotional launches

So the fit-out is nearly done. The menu is set. You've hired your team, signed off on the lighting, spent far too long choosing the right chairs. Now comes the part nobody warns you about: getting people through the door, and then getting them to tell everyone else about it.

You already know word of mouth is gold. But here's something worth really thinking about. When a happy customer tells a friend about your restaurant over the phone, that is one recommendation, to one person, which may or may not lead to a booking. When that same customer posts a five-star review on Google or TripAdvisor, that is a recommendation to potentially thousands of people who are searching for somewhere to eat right now. It stays there. It compounds. It works while you sleep.

One online review can do more for your new restaurant than a hundred personal recommendations. It reaches people you will never meet, at the exact moment they are deciding where to eat.

That is why so many new restaurants are now running promotional launches, and it is why online reviews have become the single most valuable thing a new restaurant can earn in its first few months. A well-run launch event can seed your online reputation in a way that no amount of paid advertising can match.

But there are rules. And getting them wrong can cost you far more than the price of a free lunch.

The free meal launch: a brilliant idea, done right

The concept is simple. You invite a carefully chosen group of people to come and experience your restaurant, usually for a complimentary lunch or dinner. You want them to be impressed. You want them to come back. You want them to recommend you to their friends. And yes, you want them to leave a review.

This works brilliantly when it is done properly. The cost of feeding twenty or thirty people one afternoon is nothing compared to the long-term value of twenty or thirty genuine, detailed, enthusiastic reviews appearing on Google and TripAdvisor in the same week.

We see this from our own experience. Our team is based in Soho, right in one of the most competitive restaurant neighbourhoods in London. Barely a day goes by without someone on the team receiving an invitation through an app to a complimentary lunch at a new venue. These invitations are thoughtful, well-targeted, and clearly part of a marketing strategy. The restaurants behind them understand exactly what they are doing.

The question is not whether to run a launch event. The question is how to run it in a way that is both effective and legally sound.

What the law says about incentivised reviews

A relatively new piece of legislation called the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, the DMCC Act, makes the rules around reviews much clearer than they used to be. The Competition and Markets Authority, which enforces these rules, has been given serious new powers to act on them.

The two key things you need to know:

• You cannot pay for positive reviews, or in any way require a review as a condition of receiving a benefit.
• If you offer someone something of value, a free meal, a discount, a gift, and they then post a review, that review must make clear it was written following a complimentary visit.

That second rule catches a lot of new restaurant owners off guard. The meal itself is perfectly legal. The invitation is perfectly legal. What is not acceptable is letting those reviews appear to be independent opinions from paying customers when they are not.

The fix is simple: make disclosure part of your invitation. Tell your guests upfront that if they post a review, they should mention that they were invited as guests of the restaurant. Most people are happy to do this. It does not make the review less persuasive, and in fact transparency often makes it more credible.

Not sure how to structure your launch invitation or review process? We are happy to talk it through. Contact us here.

Who should you invite

Think carefully about your guest list. The most valuable invitations are not necessarily to the people with the largest social media followings. A food blogger with 3,000 engaged local followers will often deliver better results than a national influencer whose audience has no reason to visit your neighbourhood.

Consider inviting:

• Local food writers and bloggers
• Regulars from other businesses you know in the area
• Staff from nearby offices who might become lunchtime regulars
• Community figures, local councillors, neighbourhood association members
• People in your network who are known to be active on Google or TripAdvisor

The goal is to build a core of genuine, enthusiastic reviews from people who actually live or work nearby and are likely to return. That is far more valuable than a one-day spike from people who will never come back.

What you can and cannot ask for

You can absolutely ask your guests to leave a review. In fact, you should. Do not be shy about it. You can mention it in the invitation, remind them at the end of the meal, and follow up with a friendly message afterwards.

What you cannot do:

• Offer an additional reward in exchange specifically for a review, for example "leave us a five-star review and get a free dessert next time".
• Ask guests to remove or edit a review if it is less positive than you hoped.
• Post reviews yourself posing as customers, or ask staff, friends or family to do so.
• Use a third-party service that promises to generate positive reviews, as these are almost always operating outside the rules.

That last one catches people out more than you might think. There are services out there that promise to boost your rating quickly. Some of them are straightforwardly selling fake reviews. Using them puts you at risk of serious consequences, not just from the CMA, but from the platforms themselves.

What the platforms will do

Google, TripAdvisor and other review platforms are increasingly sophisticated at detecting patterns that suggest review manipulation. If they identify a sudden cluster of reviews from accounts with no history, or reviews that all use suspiciously similar language, they will remove them. In serious cases, your listing can be suspended entirely.

A suspended Google listing for a new restaurant is genuinely damaging. People search for you, find nothing, and go elsewhere. Recovery takes time and is not guaranteed.

Building your reviews slowly and honestly, starting with a well-run launch, is the only approach that holds up over time. There are no shortcuts that do not come with a risk attached.

The better path is to build your reviews steadily and honestly over the first few months, starting with your launch events, and then through consistent, excellent service.

If you have received a warning from a review platform, or are dealing with a compliance issue, contact us here.

A cautionary tale

We have advised a number of businesses, including hospitality venues, who have found themselves in difficulty over review practices. In one case, a restaurant group used a marketing agency to run their launch. The agency, without the restaurant's full knowledge, arranged for a number of reviews to be posted by people who had never visited. When TripAdvisor's systems flagged the pattern, the restaurant's profile was penalised. Untangling the mess took months.

In another situation, a new restaurant offered a discount voucher to anyone who left a review, without asking them to disclose that the voucher had been offered. Several of those reviews were later removed by Google, and the restaurant received a formal complaint under the consumer protection rules in force at the time.

Neither of these were bad people making bad decisions. They were new operators who moved quickly and did not take advice first.

What a well-run launch looks like

Here is a simple checklist for getting it right:

• Send personalised invitations explaining that the meal is complimentary and that you would love an honest review.
• Make clear in the invitation that any review should mention it was a hosted visit.
• Brief your staff so they understand the process and can answer questions from guests.
• Follow up after the event with a thank-you message and a reminder to share their experience.
• Do not chase or pressure anyone who does not post a review. Let it happen naturally.
• Monitor your listings in the days and weeks after the event and respond professionally to every review, positive or not.

Done this way, a single well-run lunch event can generate a foundation of genuine, compliant reviews that will benefit your business for years.

If something goes wrong

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, things go sideways. A competitor posts false negative reviews. Someone has an axe to grind and posts something defamatory. Or a review you thought was compliant gets removed and you do not understand why.

These situations are more common than people realise, and they are all situations we deal with regularly. Fake negative reviews can be challenged and, in many cases, removed. Defamatory content posted online about your business can be the subject of legal action. And if you receive a complaint from the CMA or another regulator about your review practices, getting proper advice quickly is essential.

Cohen Davis – internet law specialists, Soho, London.