Marketing Restaurants and Cafés in the Gulf on TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram: Opening, Seasonal Menus and Creator Coverage

In Riyadh, Jeddah, Khobar, Dubai and Kuwait City, plenty of people discover a new café or the burger place around the corner from a short video before they ever see its sign on the street. The sound of specialty coffee being poured, cheese melting over a patty, the queue outside on opening day: these moments have become part of the decision to visit. Yet many owners only start marketing weeks after they open, then try to make up for lost time with random posting.

This guide organises the work in stages: before opening, opening week and seasonal menus for winter and Ramadan, followed by a ready-to-shoot list for your phone, how to use location tags and maps, working with food creators in a licensed and transparent way, and finally handling reviews honestly. The examples are hypothetical; the goal is a plan that fits your own place.

Before opening: a countdown that builds curiosity

The best time to start your account is when the fit-out starts, not on opening day. People love following a story: the wall being painted, the espresso machine arriving in its crate, the chef testing the sauce for the tenth time. This raw material costs nothing, and you will never get it again once the doors are open.

Suggest a three- to four-week plan to your team, with two or three posts a week plus short daily Stories. A specialty café in Riyadh's Al Malqa district, for example, could split the period like this:

1. Week one: the story and the name. Why this neighbourhood? What does the name mean? A photo of the covered shopfront.
2. Week two: the team and the ingredients. Introduce the barista, where the beans come from and the first tasting session.
3. Week three: the menu. Reveal one item every two days and run a Stories poll on the name of a new drink.
4. Final week: opening date, address, map link and opening hours, plus a reminder the day before.

Mind the clock: audiences in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain are on UTC+3, the UAE and Oman on UTC+4, and the UAE weekend is Saturday–Sunday while most other Gulf states take Friday–Saturday. We cover this in detail in our guide to the best posting times for Gulf audiences.

Opening week: document it, don't just announce it

In the first days after opening the place is packed and the team is exhausted, so filming gets forgotten. Assign one person per shift to handle content, even if that is a staff member with a phone and a small clip-on microphone. You are not after cinema-grade production, just an honest record of what is happening.

• The doors opening for the first time and the first order handed over — with the customer's permission before you show their face.
• Guests reacting to a specific dish, after asking them, and without scripting what they say.
• Kitchen footage at peak hour: tickets lined up and hands working quickly.
• A short end-of-day clip where the owner thanks guests and shares what the team learned.
• A straight answer to the question that keeps coming up in the comments: parking, bookings or family seating.

Avoid over-the-top offers you cannot honour. If you announce a free drink for the first guests and it runs out within an hour, the comments will fill with frustration. A small, clearly defined offer beats a big, vague promise.

Seasonal menus: winter and Ramadan

Seasons in the Gulf visibly change how people eat and go out. As the weather cools in winter, outdoor seating, hot drinks and warm desserts come back; in Ramadan the peak moves to after iftar and runs until suhoor. Build your content around these shifts instead of copying a ready-made calendar from somewhere else.

The winter menu

Film the outdoor seating at sunset, the steam rising from a cup of karak or milk tea, and a plate of kunafa or luqaimat being served hot. A short video titled something like "Outdoor seating is back", with a shot of the space and the map link, is enough to remind followers that you are there.

Ramadan

Ramadan and Eid dates are expected dates that depend on the moon sighting, so keep your plan flexible. Show the iftar menu or suhoor boxes one to two weeks before the month begins, publish your Ramadan opening hours clearly and pin them to the profile. Set aside content for after taraweeh, which is a busy time for many cafés. A full month-long calendar is in our Ramadan and Eid content calendar guide.

A short-video shot list: the pour, the plating, the sound

Most successful food videos rely on close-ups and clean sound. You can film everything below with a recent phone, a simple stand and natural window light. Print this table and pin it up in the kitchen:

Open with your strongest shot rather than your logo, and put the dish name on screen in large, readable type. The natural sound of food is often more appealing than loud music, so try two versions and compare them in your analytics. If you want to give the opening video an initial lift in its visible count, TikTok view packages are available — bearing in mind they never replace good footage.

Location tags and maps: make yourself easy to find

A restaurant is a physical place, and its advantage over online stores is that people can walk past it. So make the location part of almost every post, and make sure the name on the maps matches the name on your accounts exactly.

TikTok

In December 2025 TikTok launched a "Nearby" feed showing nearby content, creators and businesses. It said public posts may appear there for people in the city where the post was made or where a location was tagged, and that posts older than 90 days are not eligible ^[1]. The rollout started in the UK, France, Germany and Italy, so check whether it is available where you are — but tagging your location is a good habit either way.

Instagram

Instagram added a map search that shows businesses and places, with details such as address and opening hours plus a grid of public posts tagged at that location; cafés and restaurants were the most prominent listings when the launch was covered ^[2]. In practice, every post in which a guest tags your location adds to your place page, so gently encourage people to tag you.

Snapchat (general tip)

On Snap Map, the platform added a Places section to show nearby businesses, and an owner whose business is missing can suggest adding it or request a correction through the map ^[3]. Snapchat matters a great deal to Gulf audiences, so check how your place appears there — noting that foyup does not offer any Snapchat services.

Working with food creators: licensed and transparent

Inviting a food creator to visit is one of the most common tactics in the Gulf, but it is an advertising collaboration, not a favour. In Saudi Arabia, people who advertise on social platforms need a Mawthooq licence, and one of its obligations is to make clear that content is an ad, paid or unpaid ^[5]. In the UAE, a creator making advertising content needs an Advertiser Permit even when unpaid, and must display the permit number on their account ^[6]. This is general information; the details are in our guide to Mawthooq and the UAE Advertiser Permit.

• Ask for the licence or permit number before agreeing anything, and check it belongs to the account that will post.
• Agree in writing on the number of posts, the timing and the disclosure wording, even if the meal is the only payment.
• Never ask for a positive verdict in advance; ask them to show the dishes as they are.
• Choose creators whose audience lives in your city — followers in another country are unlikely to visit.
• Repost their content from your account with their consent, keeping the word "ad" visible.

Reviews: honest or nothing

Google Maps and delivery-app reviews shape many guests' decisions, which is why some owners are tempted to buy or fake them. Our policy is simple: foyup does not sell ratings or reviews, and we advise nobody to buy them. Google's Maps content policy prohibits paid reviews or reviews given in exchange for incentives such as discounts or free items, bans content based on a conflict of interest such as staff reviews, and stops merchants from selectively asking only for positive reviews ^[4].

What you can do honestly is ask guests to review their visit without any reward and without steering what they write, which that policy allows ^[4]. Put a small QR code on the bill or the table, and answer every negative review calmly with an apology and a concrete fix — the next guest reads your reply as closely as the complaint. And if the same comment about slow service or cold food keeps appearing, treat it as valuable operational feedback before it becomes a reputation problem.

A monthly checklist for restaurant accounts

At the end of each month, set aside one hour with your team to review what happened, using these questions as a starting point:

• Which three videos triggered the most questions about the address or bookings, and what do they have in common?
• Are the venue name, opening hours and link identical on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and the maps?
• Did we tag the location on every post, and did we repost guest content after asking permission?
• Have we replied to every new review, especially the negative ones?
• Were this month's paid collaborations with licensed creators and clearly disclosed?
• What is the next season, and have we planned its shots before it starts?

A restaurant that documents its days honestly, is easy to find on the maps and treats its guests with respect in replies and reviews builds, over time, an audience that keeps coming back — something no single post can do.