Your restaurant as a brand: recognisable from Google to the delivery bag

A brand is what guests remember, not a logo

Ask a guest what they know about your restaurant and they will not mention a typeface. They will mention the pizza with the sharp salami, the friendly lad at the counter and the green bag on the doorstep. All of that together is your brand. The logo is a small piece of it.

Inside your place you already have this sorted: the music, the interior, the menu, the way your team greets people. It goes wrong where the guest cannot see you. Your ordering page looks like somebody else's app. Your emails sound as if a program wrote them. Your Google profile shows an old photo and a different spelling of your name.

A guest does not consciously notice that. They just wonder whether this is the same place, and then choose somewhere without that doubt. What a guest recognises, they remember, and what they remember, they pick sooner.

One sentence and three words first, in fifteen minutes

Everything that follows hangs on what you put on paper in a quarter of an hour.

One sentence about your place

Write down who you are there for, what kind of place you are, what the guest gets from you and why they should believe it. Forty words at most. It is not a slogan for the front window but the yardstick you measure everything against. What you cannot back up, you leave out.

Say it is a pizzeria: for families in the neighbourhood, this is the pizzeria where Friday dinner is no hassle, because the dough rises for two days and we deliver ourselves. That example is made up. Your sentence has to match your kitchen.

Three words for your tone

Pick three words, such as classic, warm, fast, handmade, bold or playful. If a photo, a text or a design does not fit all three, change it.

Put both on one A4 sheet: your brand card. Colours, typefaces, a fixed line and seven photos get added to it. Send the card to everyone who makes anything for you, including the printer and whoever runs your Instagram.

Your name: one spelling, everywhere

Guests type your name into Google and into a message to a friend. If it is spelled differently everywhere, they do not find what they expect straight away. Say you are called Pizzeria Roma. “Roma Pizza” and “Roma's” are the same place to you, but to Google and to a new guest they are three.

Pick one spelling and use it on your front, Google profile, ordering site, invoices and social accounts. Google asks for it too: the name on a Business Profile should be the one that appears on your storefront, website and stationery. Slogans, opening hours and phone numbers do not belong in it and can get the profile suspended. The rest of that profile is covered in the guide to your Google Business Profile.

A name and a trademark are not the same thing

Your trade name is registered with the KvK, but according to the KvK that registration does not protect it on its own. Use does, mostly in the area where you are known. An exclusive right to a name or logo across the Benelux comes from registering a trademark with BOIP, valid for ten years and renewable. Check a new name with the KvK Naamchecker before you print a run of bags. This is not legal advice.

The names on your menu too

Put first the name your guest types or says at the counter, and the authentic name in the description. If you do not know which that is, listen at the counter for a week. How to build the menu itself is in how to make a menu that sells.

Logo, colours and typefaces: few, but the same everywhere

The fewer things you choose, the easier they are to keep identical.

The logo from your front window will not fit the round slot on Instagram or Google. Make a stacked version and an icon version as well, and test each at three centimetres wide. Write your colours down as HEX codes, such as #8A1C2B, so your printer, your web builder and your cousin who does the stories all use exactly the same shade.

Watch legibility. The guidelines for accessible websites (WCAG from the W3C) ask for a contrast of at least 4.5 to 1 for normal text. White letters on a pale yellow order button do not reach that. Read the licence of a typeface too before you put it on a window, a bag or in your app, because not every free typeface may be used commercially.

Seven photos you see everywhere

You do not need a photographer, but you do need one fixed way of shooting, so every page looks like the same place. Use your phone, daylight by a window, no flash, no filters, one fixed surface such as a baking tray or a wooden table, and one fixed ratio.

1. Three photos of your best sellers, one each.
2. One photo of sides and drinks together.
3. One photo of a dessert.
4. One photo of your team behind the counter.
5. One photo of your bag or box with your logo on it.

Use the same seven on your homepage, ordering page, Google profile and on the cards that go in the bag. Keep them with the logos, colours and typefaces in one shared brand folder, and refresh them when your menu changes.

Where people appear, the GDPR applies, known in the Netherlands as the AVG. Ask staff for consent beforehand, record it, and let them say no without any disadvantage or withdraw later. Always ask guests. If you are unsure, ask the Dutch data protection authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) or your adviser.

How you sound: a tone and a fixed line

A brand is also how you write. Your guest reads your ordering page, your email, your text message and your reply to a review. If they all sound different, that is four different places.

1. Write “you”, in short sentences and plain words.
2. Promise a time you can keep: “ready at 6.30 pm” says more than “fast delivery”.
3. Name the dish instead of praising it.
4. Use one kind of button with the same verb in every email.

The examples below are made up. Fill them with what is true for your place.

Choose one short line to repeat everywhere too: under your logo, in your confirmation email, on the side of your box. How to write it is covered in slogans for your restaurant. Answer reviews in the same tone: thank them, name a dish and end with one invitation, for example “Next time, try the tiramisu.”

The same everywhere a guest meets you

Walk your guest's path: Google, your site, your menu, an email, the bag, your window. At every step they ask the same question: is this the same place?

How your site should look is covered in restaurant website design, and what to post on your socials in social media for your restaurant.

The bag deserves extra attention, because it arrives where the guest cannot see you. On a platform order your name sits among dozens of others and the bag is the only thing of yours in their hand. Put your logo and fixed line on it, plus a card with a reason to order directly next time, such as a dish that only appears on your own site.

If you have packaging printed, check on rijksoverheid.nl first what currently applies to disposable cups and takeaway containers. The rules have been changed more than once in recent years.

What recognition brings, and what it does not

A guest finds you in three ways: they search for you, they walk past, or they see you among other places in a list. Platforms are good at the last one, and that is where new guests find you. Your brand does its work with the guest who already knows you and wants to order again.

1. They type your name into Google and see your own photos and a link to your ordering site.
2. They open the site and recognise the colours, the tone and the menu from the bag and your Instagram.
3. They check out and, with consent, leave an email address, so you can invite them back.

That last step matters most. On a platform the guest belongs to the platform. On your own ordering site you know who they are and what they ordered. How to keep them afterwards is in customer retention, and why they came through a platform first in why guests order through platforms.

Say ten guests switch to ordering directly after the card in the bag, twice a month at an average of €28. That is €560 a month from guests you know by name. It is arithmetic, not a promise: a brand does not make a mediocre order better, it makes sure a good restaurant gets recognised.

Your brand check for this week

Five short blocks, each between fifteen minutes and an hour.

1. Monday: write your brand card.
2. Tuesday: search for your restaurant on Google on your phone. Is the name right, are your own photos there, does the description fit?
3. Wednesday: put your ordering page next to your latest email, your Instagram and your flyer. Do they look like one restaurant?
4. Thursday: shoot the seven photos.
5. Friday: look at your bag or box and order the next batch with your logo and a card.

Repeat this on the first Monday of every month. If your menu, phone number or opening hours change, change them everywhere at once.