The Journal
Ideas for venues that want to grow.
Practical writing on restaurant marketing, content and growth.

Why Your Restaurant Menu Should Not Be a PDF in 2026
11 Jun 2026A restaurant PDF menu pinches to read, hides from Google and slows your site. Here is why it costs you bookings, and what to use instead in 2026.

Restaurant Website Redesign Checklist: 15 Things to Fix Before You Lose Bookings
8 Jun 2026A restaurant website redesign checklist of 15 fixes that stop a slow, outdated site quietly leaking bookings to the venue down the road.

Food Cost Percentage Explained (and How to Lower It)
4 Jun 2026What food cost percentage really means for a UK restaurant, how to calculate it, the benchmark to aim for, and seven practical ways to bring it down without cutting quality.

How to Price a Dish for Profit (UK, 2026)
3 Jun 2026A step-by-step method for pricing a restaurant dish — recipe costing, wastage, target GP and VAT — with a worked example and a free calculator to do the maths for you.

What GP Percentage Should a UK Restaurant Aim For?
2 Jun 2026A straight answer on target gross profit for UK restaurants in 2026 — the benchmarks for food and drink, why GP slips, and how to check any dish in 30 seconds.

Meta Ads for Restaurants: How to Turn Scrolls Into Bookings
31 May 2026A working playbook for Meta ads that actually drive restaurant bookings — campaign structure, creative angles, budget logic and the conversion events that matter.

Restaurant Content Calendar: What to Post Each Month
29 May 2026A monthly content calendar template restaurants and cafés can run themselves — what to post each week, in what cadence, and how to keep it from going stale.

How Much Does Restaurant Social Media Management Cost in the UK?
27 May 2026A no-nonsense breakdown of UK restaurant social media management pricing in 2026 — virtual assistants, junior freelancers, agencies and hospitality studios — and what each actually delivers.

How One Restaurant Shoot Day Can Create 30 Days of Content
24 May 2026The content sequencing playbook we use to turn a single full-day shoot into a month of organic posts, reels, stories and paid ads — without re-using the same hero shot twice.

How to Prepare Your Restaurant for a Photo and Video Shoot
22 May 2026A working checklist of what to prep in the seven days before a restaurant shoot — kitchen, room, team and timing — so you actually get a month of content out of a single day.

Restaurant Photography & Videography Pricing in London
19 May 2026What restaurant photo and video shoots actually cost in London — from £450 reel packs to full-day, multi-photographer productions — and what to expect at each tier.

What Makes a Good Restaurant Website in 2026?
15 May 2026The 12-point checklist we run every London restaurant website against — mobile speed, menu structure, booking flow, schema and the small details that move bookings.

How Much Does a Restaurant Website Cost in London?
12 May 2026What a London restaurant website actually costs in 2026 — from £200 template builds to £15k custom builds — and what each price tier really gets you.