What to Put in Your Restaurant's Instagram Bio

Someone sees a reel of your lamb haneeth at 11:40 on a Tuesday night. They tap your name. Now they are on your profile, and they want to know three things fast: what is this, where is it, and can I get it right now. If your restaurant Instagram bio says "Good vibes only 🔥🍽️ DM for info," they have already swiped back out. The bio is the one piece of your account that every new person reads top to bottom, and most of them read it once.

Here is how we set them up, in order.

The name field is a search field, not a branding field

Instagram gives you two text fields at the top. The handle (@yourname) and the name field underneath it, in bold. People treat the name field as a place to repeat the restaurant's name in nicer type. That is a waste.

Instagram searches the name field. So does the explore bar when someone types "yemeni food dearborn." Put your restaurant name, then what you are and where you are.

Mandi House — Yemeni Restaurant, Dearborn

That is it. If you have a second location, the city still goes in. If your name is in Arabic script on the sign, put the Arabic in there too, but keep the English words that people actually type. Both can fit.

One more thing: your handle should be readable out loud. If a customer has to be told "it's an underscore then the number four," you will lose people at the counter and on flyers.

Line one should say what you sell and the neighborhood you sell it in

The first line of the bio text is the only line guaranteed to be seen. Everything after it may be hidden behind "more."

So line one is not your founding story. It is the plain sentence a stranger needs:

Charcoal-grilled Yemeni food in East Dearborn. Dine in, carry out, catering.

Halal brunch on Michigan Ave. Chicken and waffles, shakshuka, no pork in the kitchen.

Menswear and tailoring in Melvindale. Suits off the rack, altered in house.

Short, flat, specific. If a word in that line does not help somebody decide whether to come, cut it. "Family owned since" is fine if you have the real year and it is actually part of the pitch. Never round it or guess it.

For a lot of our clients, the single most valuable word in the bio is halal. If that matters to your customers, do not bury it in a highlight. Put it on line one.

Hours belong in the bio when your hours are unusual

Instagram has an hours field in the business profile. Use it. But also put hours in the text if there is anything a customer would get wrong.

Closed Mondays. Open until 2 a.m. on weekends. Closed Friday afternoon for jummah. Kitchen closes an hour before the doors. Those are the facts that cause a bad drive and a one-star review, and they are worth two lines of bio.

If your hours are plain nine-to-nine seven days, skip it and save the space.

You get one link, so send it where the money is

Instagram lets you add multiple links now, and link-in-bio tools let you add twenty. Do not. Every extra choice is a chance for somebody to choose nothing.

Pick based on how you actually make money:

• Most of your orders are pickup and delivery? Link your online ordering, direct if you have it.
• You are a destination and people come to sit down? Link Google Maps or your reservation page.
• You live on catering and large orders? Link a catering inquiry form or a menu PDF.
• You sell a product, like the LEGO shop or the formalwear floor? Link the shop or the specific collection you are posting about.

If you truly need two, make it two: order online, and directions. Anything past that is a menu of ways to leave.

Check the link once a month. Ordering platforms change URLs. Dead links in bios sit there for a year before anybody notices.

The address line does more work than the pin

Fill in the address and the contact buttons in the business profile settings. Call, directions, email. A surprising number of accounts we audit have the category set to "Personal Blog" and no address at all, which means no map, no directions button, and a profile Instagram does not understand as a business.

While you are in there, check the category. "Restaurant" is fine. "Yemeni Restaurant," "Coffee Shop," or "Men's Clothing Store" is better, because it shows under your name.

Highlights are the second half of your bio

The bio text is three or four lines. The highlight row is the rest of the answer. Treat them as one unit.

Four to six highlights, named in plain words, covered with simple labels you can read at thumbnail size:

Menu. Hours. Catering. Inside. Specials. Reviews.

Not "vibes," not "bts," not an emoji by itself. Someone deciding on dinner is looking for the menu, and they should be able to find it in one tap. Keep the menu highlight current. An expired Ramadan menu sitting at the front of the row in July tells people you stopped paying attention.

Cut these

Emoji chains that break the line. "DM for prices" when you could just post the prices. "Link below ⬇️" when the link is clearly right there. Hashtags in the bio, which almost nobody taps. Quotes about hustle. Your personal account tagged in a business bio. A phone number typed as text when the call button already exists.

And one more: do not write anything you cannot keep true. If the bio says "open daily" and you close Mondays, that is the sentence that earns you an angry review.

Read it the way a stranger would

Open your profile on a phone, logged out if you can. Give it four seconds. Can you tell what the food is, what city you are in, whether it is halal, and how to order? If any of those four takes a second tap, fix it today. The bio costs you nothing to change and it is working on every single person a reel brings in.

We rewrite bios, name fields, categories and highlight covers as part of the first week with every client, before a single post goes out, because there is no point sending traffic to a profile that does not answer anything. If you want us to take the whole thing off your hands — the shooting, the writing, the posting on a set schedule, and the tracking — book a call and we'll walk through your account while you are on the phone. Or call (313) 633-5714.