A restaurant’s marketing week looks like this: a menu change that never reaches the website, a Google Business Profile that last posted in spring, forty unanswered reviews, a half-written email about Thursday’s wine dinner, and an Instagram account someone’s nephew runs when he remembers.
None of that work is hard. It is repetitive, and it lands on people who are also running a kitchen or a front desk. That is the kind of work Claude Code skills are good at, because a skill writes down your house rules once (your voice, your allergen policy, the way you sign off a review reply) and Claude follows them every time.
This guide covers the skills, plugins and MCP servers that fit restaurant, bar, cafe and hotel marketing in 2026, both free and paid. It also covers the parts where you should slow down: the FTC’s rule on fake reviews, Google’s review and post policies, and email law.
A note on method: this post is research-based. We read the source of each free skill, checked GitHub repos through the GitHub API on 2 November 2026, and checked paid prices on their live pages. We did not run a hands-on test in a working restaurant, so nothing here is a measured result.
New to skills? Read what Claude Code skills are first.
The short answer: what should a restaurant install?
Start with three free things: a restaurant-specific pack (RankGrid’s restaurant-claude-skills), Corey Haines’ marketingskills for copy and email, and claude-seo for local SEO and schema. Add Anthropic’s free Marketing plugin if you want brand-voice review on everything you publish. You do not need a paid pack to cover the six jobs in this guide.
Restaurant-specific skills are thin on the ground. Our searches found two packs built for food service and a handful of single skills. Everything else here is general marketing tooling that you point at hospitality work with a good brief.
The shortlist at a glance
| # | Skill, plugin or pack | Source | Free or paid | Best for | Signal (2 Nov 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | restaurant-claude-skills (RankGrid) | github.com/miron-tech/restaurant-claude-skills | Free (MIT) | Menu, reviews, local buzz, catering, retention | 2 stars, last push 8 Oct 2026 |
| 2 | @gonzih/skills-restaurant | npm package | Free (MIT) | Menu descriptions, review replies, catering proposals | v1.2.0, npm updated 23 Mar 2026, no repo listed |
| 3 | marketingskills | github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills | Free (MIT) | Copy, email, social, CRO | ~57.9k stars, push 31 Oct 2026 |
| 4 | claude-seo | github.com/AgriciDaniel/claude-seo | Free (MIT) | Local SEO, schema, audits | ~25.6k stars, push 1 Nov 2026 |
| 5 | Anthropic Marketing plugin | github.com/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins | Free (Apache-2.0) | Brand voice, campaign plans | ~34.4k stars (repo), push 1 Nov 2026 |
| 6 | claude-skills marketing bundle | github.com/alirezarezvani/claude-skills | Free (MIT) | Broad library | ~29.1k stars (repo), push 31 Oct 2026 |
| 7 | Equipt menu-design-brief | equipt-agent.vercel.app | Not confirmed | Menu design briefs | Third-party catalog, pricing not public |
| 8 | Inflectual Master Marketing Skills Bundle | inflectual.gumroad.com | Paid: $167 one-time | 167 general marketing skills | Gumroad listing |
| 9 | Contra Ultimate Claude SEO & AEO Skills Pack | Contra | Paid: $39 (shown vs $79) | SEO and AI-search copy | Contra listing |
| 10 | SuperSkills | superskills-one.vercel.app | Paid: $50 | General skill pack | Live page |
Star counts are popularity, not quality. A 2-star repo built for restaurants can be more useful to you than a 50k-star general pack, as long as you read it first.
Why restaurants are a good fit for Claude Code skills
Hospitality marketing is a small number of formats repeated forever: the menu, the GBP post, the review reply, the social post, the event email. A skill locks the format and the voice so you only supply the new facts each week. That is where the time goes, and it is where a skill removes the re-explaining.
Here is the pain stack most owners describe, in plain terms:
- The menu exists in five places. Printed, PDF, website, Google, delivery apps. When the kitchen 86s a dish or raises a price, three of those go stale.
- Reviews pile up. Replying well to a one-star review about a long wait takes ten minutes of careful writing when you are tired and annoyed. Replying badly takes thirty seconds and lives forever.
- Posting is irregular. Google Business Profile posts, Instagram and the email list all want something new each week, and a busy Saturday kills the plan.
- Voice drifts. Three managers write three different restaurants.
A skill addresses each one the same way. You write a SKILL.md (or install one) that says: here is our menu file, here is our voice, here are the rules, here is the output format. Then a request like “write this week’s GBP post about the new brunch” produces something on-brand without a long prompt.
What skills do not fix
Skills do not take photos, taste food, or know that the walk-in broke. They do not post for you unless you wire in a connector, and even then you should approve every public post. And they cannot make a fake review legal. More on that below.
One honest caution from people building this kind of automation: in an r/automation post about Google review management for a multi-location restaurant owner, the builder wrote, “The owner didn’t want perfect AI replies. They wanted consistency” (thread, read via a mirror because reddit.com blocked our fetch). That matches what skills do well. Consistency is the product.
The best free Claude Code skills for restaurants
The two restaurant-specific packs are RankGrid’s restaurant-claude-skills on GitHub and the @gonzih/skills-restaurant npm package. Both are MIT-licensed. Neither has a large user base yet, so read every file before you run them. The general packs below them fill the gaps in schema, SEO and email.
1. restaurant-claude-skills (RankGrid)
The repo describes itself as “Free Claude Code skills for restaurants: market recon, menu engineering, review requests, local marketing, catering packages, guest retention.” Its README lists six skills: Market Recon, Menu Engineer, Review Engine, Local Buzz, Catering Builder and Guest Retention, chained in that order.
- Licence: MIT. Stars: 2. Last push: 8 October 2026. Archived: no.
- Setup:
git clone https://github.com/miron-tech/restaurant-claude-skills.git, then open Claude Code in that folder. The README recommends Perplexity and Firecrawl MCP servers (both need API keys) and the Claude in Chrome extension for reading GBP and Yelp pages. - Watch for: the README’s “time saved” column (for example “~30 min/day → 5 minutes” for reviews) is the author’s claim, not a test we could check. The “Review Engine” also covers review requests, so read it against Google’s solicitation rules in the compliance section before you use it.
2. @gonzih/skills-restaurant (npm)
Four skills: /menu-description-writer, /catering-proposal, /staff-schedule-email and /review-response. Install with npx @gonzih/skills-restaurant, then restart Claude Code.
- Licence: MIT. Version: 1.2.0, npm metadata last modified 23 March 2026.
- Watch for: the npm listing shows no linked source repo. Running
npxexecutes code from the registry, so download the tarball withnpm pack @gonzih/skills-restaurantand read it first.
3. marketingskills (Corey Haines)
The most-starred marketing skill pack. It is not restaurant-specific, but its copywriting, email sequence and social skills take a hospitality brief well. Install guide: our marketingskills review.
4. claude-seo
Covers local SEO checks and schema generation, which matters for the menu and the location pages. More detail in Claude Code skills for local SEO.
5. Anthropic Marketing plugin
Official, free, and good at one thing restaurants need: a brand-voice check before anything goes public. Install:
claude plugin marketplace add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins
claude plugin install marketing@knowledge-work-pluginsSee our Anthropic Marketing plugin review.
6. claude-skills (alirezarezvani)
A wide library with a marketing bundle. Useful as a parts bin when you want to borrow a social calendar or email skill and adapt it.
Paid Claude Code skills for hospitality: worth it?
None of the paid packs we verified is built for restaurants or hotels. They are general marketing bundles. Buy one only if you want a large library and do not want to assemble free skills yourself. The restaurant-specific work in this guide is covered by free tools plus a short house-rules skill you write once.
| Paid pack | Price (verified) | What you get | Restaurant fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inflectual Master Marketing Skills Bundle | $167 one-time | 167 marketing skills (listing) | General; you adapt it |
| Contra Ultimate Claude SEO & AEO Skills Pack | $39 (shown against $79) | SEO and answer-engine copy | Helps local SEO pages |
| SuperSkills | $50 | General skill pack (site) | General |
| Equipt menu-design-brief | Pricing not public | Menu design brief skill | Direct fit, unverified |
| DataForSEO (API, not a skill) | Pay-as-you-go, $50 minimum top-up, $1 trial | Keyword and local SERP data | Useful for “near me” research |
You also need Claude itself. Claude Pro is $20 a month ($17 a month billed yearly) and includes Claude Code.
Free vs paid, side by side
| Need | Best free option | Paid option | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Menu descriptions | gonzih menu-description-writer, RankGrid Menu Engineer | Equipt (pricing not public) | Free is enough |
| Menu schema | claude-seo | Contra SEO pack | Free is enough |
| GBP posts | RankGrid Local Buzz | Inflectual bundle | Free plus a house-rules skill |
| Review replies | gonzih review-response | None restaurant-specific | Free, with human approval |
| Social | marketingskills | Inflectual bundle | Free |
| Event emails | marketingskills email skills | SuperSkills | Free |
Workflow 1: menu schema and menu copy
Keep one source-of-truth menu file (CSV or JSON) and have Claude generate everything from it: website menu, schema.org JSON-LD, delivery-app copy and printable descriptions. When a price changes, you change one row and regenerate. This is the single highest-value setup for most restaurants, because a stale menu online costs bookings.
Schema.org has types for this: Restaurant (with servesCuisine, hasMenu, acceptsReservations), Menu, MenuSection and MenuItem. A MenuItem can carry offers (price and currency) and suitableForDiet, which takes values like VeganDiet or GlutenFreeDiet. See schema.org/Menu and schema.org/MenuItem. Google does not promise a special search display for menu markup, so treat it as clean data for search engines and AI answers, not a ranking trick.
Example prompt
Read
menu.csv. Generate schema.org JSON-LD for our Restaurant with hasMenu, one MenuSection per category, and a MenuItem for each dish with name, description, offers (price, USD) and suitableForDiet only where the CSV’s diet column says so. Do not add any diet label that is not in the CSV. Then write a 20 to 30 word description per dish in our voice file. Flag any dish missing a price.
What the output should contain
- Valid JSON-LD you can paste into the page
<head>and test in Google’s Rich Results Test or the Schema.org validator. - Prices that match the CSV exactly.
- Diet and allergen labels only where your data says so. This is a safety issue, not a style choice. Never let a model infer “gluten-free” from an ingredient list.
- A list of rows it could not process.
For more on structured data skills, see Claude Code skills for schema markup.
Workflow 2: Google Business Profile posts
Use a skill to draft one GBP post a week from your menu file and events calendar, then post it yourself. Keep contact details out of the post text and use the built-in “Call now” button instead. Google says posts with unverified phone numbers, email addresses or social handles may be removed.
That last point comes from Google’s own Business Profile posts content policy. Two other details from that page are worth putting in your skill:
- Posts and photos fall under Google’s prohibited and restricted content policies, and the business is responsible for what it posts.
- Hotels cannot create offer posts, or any post that mentions deals, promotions or discounts. If you market a hotel restaurant, your skill needs a rule that knows which listing it is writing for.
Example prompt
Using
menu.csvandevents.md, draft three Google Business Profile updates for next week: one for the new autumn brunch, one for Thursday’s wine dinner, one general. Each under 1,000 characters, no phone numbers or links in the body, one suggested button (Book, Order online, Learn more or Call now) and a photo brief for each. Listing type: restaurant.
What the output should contain
- Three short posts with a clear first line (the preview cuts off).
- A button recommendation per post.
- A photo brief (what to shoot, landscape or square).
- No invented offers. If there is no discount, the post should not hint at one.
Google’s policy page we read did not state a character limit, so the 1,000 figure in the prompt is a working cap of ours. Check the field in your own GBP dashboard.
Workflow 3: review replies (and the FTC fake review rule)
Let Claude draft replies, but have a person approve every one before it posts, and never let any tool write, buy, filter or suppress reviews. The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials (16 CFR Part 465) has been in force since 21 October 2024, and Google’s review policies are stricter still on how you ask for reviews.
What the FTC rule covers
From the Federal Register notice, the rule addresses:
| Area | What it means for a restaurant |
|---|---|
| Fake reviews (§465.2) | No reviews from people who did not eat there, including AI-written ones posed as guests |
| Buying reviews | No incentives conditioned on a positive (or negative) review |
| Insider reviews | Owners, managers and staff reviewing without clear disclosure is a problem |
| Company-controlled review sites | No “independent” review site you secretly run |
| Review suppression (§465.7) | No unfounded legal threats, intimidation or false accusations to stop a review, and no showing only good reviews while implying they are all of them |
| Fake social indicators | No bought followers or likes used to mislead |
The FTC can seek civil penalties for knowing violations. Read the rule text itself before you set up any review program, and talk to a lawyer if you run a group.
What Google adds
Google’s prohibited and restricted content policy bans incentives for reviews (payment, discounts, free food), including in exchange for changing a bad review. It also bans selectively soliciting positive reviews (review gating), discouraging negative ones, pressuring guests to post while on the premises, staff review quotas, and asking guests to name a staff member. So a “text happy guests a review link, send unhappy ones to a feedback form” flow breaks Google’s rules even if it feels clever.
Example prompt
Draft a reply to this 2-star Google review. Our rules: thank them by first name only, acknowledge the specific issue (45-minute wait), no excuses, no blaming staff, invite them to contact the manager through our website, sign as “Maria, GM”. Under 80 words. If the review mentions illness, allergy, injury or discrimination, do not draft a reply; flag it for the owner.
What the output should contain
- A short, specific reply that names the actual complaint.
- No offer of free food or money in exchange for editing the review.
- No legal language, no accusation that the reviewer is lying.
- An escalation flag for anything about health, allergens, injury or discrimination. One vendor guide we read recommends exactly that split, and it is good practice regardless.
To keep replies from sounding machine-written, pair this with a voice skill: skills for humanizing AI writing.
Workflow 4: social media for restaurants and bars
Build a weekly social batch from the same menu and events files: three to five posts, each with a caption, a shot list and a posting note. Claude handles captions and planning. Your team handles the photos, which is the part that makes food content work.
A social skill for hospitality should know:
- What is on this week. It reads
events.mdandmenu.csv, not its imagination. - Your no-go list. No “best in town” claims you cannot back, no health claims about dishes, and alcohol posts that follow your local rules on drink promotions (these vary by state and country, so put yours in the skill).
- Format per platform. Instagram carousel slide copy, a Reel shot list, a short Facebook version.
Example prompt
Plan five Instagram posts for 4 to 10 November from
events.mdandmenu.csv. For each: caption under 150 words in our voice, 3 to 5 hashtags (local plus cuisine), a shot list for the kitchen team, and best day to post. One carousel, two Reels, two single photos. Flag anything that mentions alcohol pricing.
What the output should contain
- Five complete drafts tied to real dishes and dates.
- Shot lists specific enough for a line cook with a phone.
- Flags on alcohol, allergens and any claim that needs proof.
Deeper picks for this channel: Claude Code skills for social media managers.
Workflow 5: local SEO for restaurants and hotels
Local SEO for hospitality is mostly consistency: the same name, address, phone and hours everywhere, a complete GBP, location pages that answer real questions, and menu data search engines can read. Claude Code skills help you audit that consistency and write the pages, but the GBP itself is edited by hand or through Google’s tools.
A useful local SEO pass with claude-seo or a similar skill:
- Audit NAP and hours. Give Claude your website, GBP export and the top directory listings. Ask for every mismatch, especially holiday hours.
- Check the location page. Does it state cuisine, neighbourhood, parking, reservations, accessibility, private dining and price range in plain text?
- Add schema.
RestaurantorHotelwithaddress,geo,openingHoursSpecification,priceRange,hasMenu. - Find question gaps. Use DataForSEO or a SERP tool to see what people search near you (“brunch with outdoor seating near …”) and write honest answers on the page.
Example prompt
Compare the name, address, phone and hours on our homepage, contact page and this GBP export. List every mismatch in a table. Then review
location.htmland list missing facts a diner would want (parking, reservations, dietary options, accessibility, private dining). Do not invent any fact; mark unknowns as “ask owner”.
What the output should contain
- A mismatch table you can fix in an afternoon.
- A gap list with “ask owner” placeholders, not guesses.
- Draft schema with your real hours.
More: local SEO skills guide and skills for AI search visibility.
Workflow 6: event and promo emails
Use an email skill to turn one event brief into a short sequence: announcement, reminder and last-call, plus a plain-text version. Keep it to people who signed up, include your physical address and an unsubscribe link, and honour opt-outs fast. Those are CAN-SPAM basics in the US.
The FTC’s CAN-SPAM compliance guide lists the core requirements: no false or misleading header information, no deceptive subject lines, identify the message as an ad where required, include a valid physical postal address, tell people how to opt out, and honour opt-outs within 10 business days. If you mail guests in the EU, UK or Canada, consent rules are stricter; check the local law.
Example prompt
Write a three-email sequence for our 14 November wine dinner (5 courses, $95 per person, 40 seats, book via our website). Email 1 sends 10 days out, email 2 four days out, email 3 the morning before only if seats remain. Subject line options for each, preview text, body under 150 words, one CTA. Footer: our postal address placeholder and unsubscribe line. No fake urgency: only say seats are limited because there are 40.
What the output should contain
- Three emails with honest scarcity (40 seats is a real number; “only 3 left!” is not unless it is true).
- Subject lines that match the content.
- A footer with address and unsubscribe placeholders.
- A note on who should receive email 3 (non-bookers only).
See Claude Code skills for email marketing.
Build your own house-rules skill in 20 minutes
The most useful restaurant skill is one you write: a single SKILL.md that holds your voice, your menu file path, your allergen rule, your review-reply rules and your GBP listing type. Every workflow above gets better when it reads this file first. It is plain Markdown, so a manager can edit it.
A starting skeleton:
---
name: house-rules
description: Use for any marketing copy for [Restaurant Name]: menu, GBP posts, review replies, social, email.
---
# House rules
- Voice: warm, short sentences, no "foodie" cliches.
- Source of truth: menu.csv, events.md. Never invent dishes, prices or offers.
- Allergens and diet labels: only from menu.csv. Never infer.
- Reviews: draft only. Escalate illness, allergy, injury, discrimination to owner.
- Never write reviews, offer incentives for reviews, or ask only happy guests.
- GBP: no phone numbers or links in post text. Listing type: restaurant (hotel = no offer posts).
- Email: include address and unsubscribe placeholders. Real scarcity only.Save it in ~/.claude/skills/house-rules/SKILL.md. Full steps: how to build a Claude Code skill and how to install Claude Code skills. For voice specifically: brand voice skills.
Common mistakes restaurants make with AI marketing
The expensive mistakes are not bad captions. They are invented allergen labels, auto-posted review replies, review gating and fake urgency. Each one can cost a guest’s health, a Google listing’s standing or an FTC complaint. Build guardrails into the skill rather than relying on someone remembering.
- Letting the model guess diet labels. “Vegan” on a dish cooked in chicken stock is a safety failure.
- Auto-posting replies. Approve every public reply. A reply that argues with a guest is permanent.
- Asking only happy guests for reviews. Google bans it outright.
- Offering a free dessert for a review. Google bans incentives; the FTC rule bans incentives conditioned on sentiment.
- Staff reviewing their own restaurant. The FTC rule treats undisclosed insider reviews as a problem.
- Fake scarcity in emails. “Last 2 tables!” when there are 20 erodes trust and can be deceptive.
- Installing unread skills. A 2-star repo or an
npxpackage runs on your machine. Read it. - Updating the menu in one place. Generate every format from one file.
FAQ
What are Claude Code skills?
Folders with a SKILL.md file of instructions (sometimes plus scripts) for one job. Claude loads a skill when your request matches its description.
Are there Claude Code skills made for restaurants?
Yes, a few. RankGrid’s restaurant-claude-skills on GitHub (six skills, MIT) and the @gonzih/skills-restaurant npm package (four skills, MIT) are the two we found. Both are small and new.
Do I need to code to use them?
No. You paste an install command into a terminal. The skills are plain Markdown you can read and edit.
Can Claude Code post to Google Business Profile for me?
Not by default. You can connect tools, but we recommend Claude drafts and a person posts, so nothing goes public unreviewed.
Is it legal to use AI to reply to reviews?
Drafting replies with AI is not banned by the FTC rule. Writing fake reviews, buying reviews or suppressing negative ones is. Have a person approve each reply.
What does the FTC fake review rule ban?
Fake reviews (including AI-written ones from people with no experience), sentiment-conditioned incentives, undisclosed insider reviews, company-controlled review sites, review suppression and fake social indicators. It took effect 21 October 2024.
Can I offer a discount for a Google review?
No. Google’s policy bans incentives for reviews, including discounts and free items.
Can I send only happy guests a review link?
No. Google bans selectively soliciting positive reviews. Ask every guest the same way, or none.
How do I add menu schema to my website?
Generate Restaurant, Menu, MenuSection and MenuItem JSON-LD from your menu file and paste it into the page. Validate it with the Schema.org validator.
Does menu schema improve rankings?
We found no source that promises a ranking boost. It gives search engines and AI tools clean data about your menu, which is reason enough.
Can hotels post offers on Google Business Profile?
No. Google says hotels cannot create offer posts or posts that mention deals or discounts.
Why did Google remove my GBP post?
One common cause in Google’s policy: unverified phone numbers, emails or social handles in the post text. Use the Call now button instead.
What should a restaurant event email include?
Date, time, price, booking link, honest capacity, a physical postal address and an unsubscribe option.
Are paid skill packs worth it for restaurants?
Rarely. The paid packs we verified (Inflectual at $167, Contra at $39, SuperSkills at $50) are general marketing bundles. Free tools plus a house-rules skill cover the restaurant jobs.
How much does Claude Code cost?
It is included with Claude Pro at $20 a month, or $17 a month billed yearly.
Are these skills safe to install?
Read every SKILL.md and script first, prefer repos with public history, and be careful with any skill that asks for API keys.
Did you test these skills in a restaurant?
No. This guide is based on reading source code, documentation and official policies. It is not a hands-on test.
Sources and methodology
We searched the web, Reddit and third-party skill registries for restaurant and hospitality skills between 1 and 2 November 2026. Repo data (stars, licence, last push, archived status) came from the GitHub API on 2 November 2026. npm data came from npm view. Paid prices came from the live listings. Reddit blocked direct fetching, so the one Reddit thread we cite was read through a mirror.
- FTC rule: Federal Register, 22 August 2024
- Google review policy: support.google.com/contributionpolicy/answer/7400114
- Google post policy: support.google.com/business/answer/7213077
- CAN-SPAM: FTC compliance guide
- Schema: schema.org/Menu, schema.org/MenuItem
- Reddit: r/automation, Google review management for a restaurant owner
Your next step
Make your menu file this week. One CSV with dish, section, description, price and diet labels. Then install claude-seo, generate your menu schema from it, and compare it to what your website shows today. That one file feeds every other workflow in this guide.
