·Adiamo Studio
How to publish a private dining room
Put capacity, how to book, and any minimum you enforce on the restaurant’s own page, and keep the private room on the restaurant’s Google profile unless it is truly a separate business.
Answer first
Put the private room on the restaurant’s website, in a few sentences a guest can scan: how many people you will actually seat, whether you sell the whole room or a table inside it, how to request it, and any minimum or deposit you will enforce. Keep it on the restaurant’s Google profile. A room behind the same door, under the same name, is not a second business. Google’s own examples of what does not get a separate profile include a counter inside a shop you already run. Open a second profile only if the space has its own name, its own sign, its own entrance, and a category that is really different. One person on shift has to read the requests. A button nobody watches is a closed room with a nicer label.
A guest writes “private room for 18 on the 12th” and gets silence, or a yes, and then arrives to a corner table and a confused host. The Instagram photo showed a room you can close the door on. The website never said how many it holds, or that December is already a buyout.
This guide is what to publish about that room, and when it is still the restaurant rather than a second listing. The ordinary table — one Reserve path the floor answers — is in where your reservation link should go. Photos of a second space are in what photos belong on a restaurant website.
How a private room differs from a second business
Google allows a separate profile for a department that faces the public as its own entity: a different name from the main business, and typically its own customer entrance and its own category. A section inside a business you already operate does not qualify. The guidelines’ example of what is not a separate profile is the hot food bar inside a grocery store. Your private dining room, reached through the restaurant’s door and booked by the restaurant’s team, is that kind of section. The text is Guidelines for representing your business on Google.
| A room inside the restaurant | A separate events business | |
|---|---|---|
| Name on the sign | The restaurant’s name | A different name, visible outside |
| Door | The restaurant’s door | Its own customer entrance |
| Who confirms | The same team as the dining room | A team that runs this space as its own business |
| Google profile | The restaurant’s profile | Its own profile, its own category |
| Website | A section on the restaurant’s page | A page that is this business, not a footnote |
| Category | Still the restaurant | Only if “this business is a” venue, not “this restaurant has a room” |
People scan. Capacity and the way to ask belong in short lines, not in a paragraph about the plasterwork. Nielsen Norman Group’s note on how users read on the web is the reason the number comes first.
When to publish the room
Put it on the page
- You can close a door, or sell every seat, for a known number of guests.
- Someone on shift will read the request on the days you claim to offer it.
- You can say the minimum, the deposit, or the menu in a sentence you will keep.
- The photos are of that room, not of the terrace in July.
Leave it off
- “Private” means a corner table you might push together if the night is quiet.
- December is already sold and you have no date when it is free.
- The minimum changes depending on who asks.
- You would need a second Google profile to make the room sound bigger than it is.
How to publish the room
Number
The seats you will sell
Offer
Whole room, or a table inside it
Rules
Minimum or deposit, if you enforce one
Reply
One path a person reads
Profile
Still the restaurant’s listing
- 1
Write the capacity you will honour
The number is the seats you sell for that room, not a fire-code figure you have never laid. If lunch is 12 and dinner is 8 because of the service, say both. A single “up to 40” that you never accept trains the next enquiry to start with an argument.
- 2
Say whether they get the room or a table
“Exclusive use” and “a private table in the dining room” are different products. Name which one you sell on which days. If the terrace is the overflow, say so, and keep that sentence in step with the months the terrace exists. Those seasonal facts are in what guests ask before they book.
- 3
Publish the minimum or the deposit only if you will enforce it
If there is a minimum spend, write the figure. If there is a deposit, write when you take it and when you keep it. If there is no rule, do not invent one in the confirmation. The reply should repeat the date, the number of guests, and the rule, in the same thread the guest used. How that thread should work is in WhatsApp and email reservations that actually get answered.
- 4
Give the request one path that is watched
The restaurant’s Reserve button can be the path, with a line that says private dining uses it. A second address is fine when it is labeled — events@ or a named WhatsApp — and someone reads it during the week. An equal button that the floor treats as optional is how an 18-top arrives unannounced. Google’s help on local business links separates reservation links from the website field, and lets you mark the one you answer as preferred.
- 5
Show the room, then stop
One photo of the empty room and one of it set for a meal are enough for a guest to judge the space. A slideshow of every banquet you have hosted hides the number. The menu they would eat belongs in text, with prices if the private menu has them, the same way the dining-room menu does in how to put your menu on your restaurant website.
- 6
Leave the Google profile as the restaurant
Do not create a second listing called “Your Name Private Dining” at the same pin. Do not add a category because you have a room. Categories answer “this business is a”, which is how to choose your restaurant’s Google category. Mention the room in the description only as a fact about the restaurant. What that field is allowed to contain is in what to write in your Google business description.
What the guest needs before they write
| Fact | Publish this | Leave it off when |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity | The seats you will sell, lunch and dinner if they differ | A number you have never set the room for |
| Exclusive use | Yes, no, or which days | You decide on the night |
| Minimum or deposit | The figure, and when a deposit is kept | You do not enforce it |
| Menu | The private menu in text, or “chosen from the carte” | A PDF from last Christmas |
| How to ask | One watched path | A form that lands in an inbox cleared on Mondays |
| The restaurant’s profile and category | A second pin for the same door |
The restaurant’s own page can hold those lines next to the ordinary way to book a table. The card below is a live site: a private room belongs on a page like that, as part of the restaurant, not as a second address.
When the private room fails in public
- The capacity is a wish. You published 24. The table seats 14. The guest did the headcount before they travelled.
- Exclusive use was a mood. They expected an empty room. They got a table by the kitchen pass.
- The deposit appears only in the reply. The page was silent. The argument starts before the meal.
- Two buttons, one watcher. Enquiries to the events address sit until the date has passed.
- A second Google profile. Same door, two names. Guests book the listing nobody checks.
- Last year’s set menu. The price on the PDF is not the price on the pass. They will quote the PDF.
What a private-dining paragraph does not do
It does not hold the date. Someone still has to confirm. It does not make a corner table a private room, and it does not make the restaurant an event venue in Google’s categories. It does not replace allergens, hours, or the ordinary Reserve button for two people on a Thursday. A second paragraph is not a second listing, and a second listing for the same door is a duplicate, not a plan. The room is a fact about this restaurant. Publish the fact you will stand behind on the night.
Frequently asked questions
Should the private room have its own Google profile?
No, if guests enter through your door and you book it under the restaurant’s name. A separate profile needs its own name, its own sign, its own entrance, and a category that is actually different.
What if we only do exclusive hire, not a table in the room?
Say that. “The room is sold as a whole, for this many guests, on these days.” A guest who wanted one table will book the dining room instead, which is the right outcome.
Do I have to publish a minimum spend?
Publish it if you charge it. A figure that appears for the first time in the confirmation is how bookings fall apart. If you have no minimum, do not invent one to look formal.
Can private dining use the same Reserve button?
Yes, if the person who reads ordinary bookings also reads these, and the page says so. A separate events address is fine when it is labeled and actually watched.
The room is upstairs and the dining room is step-free. Where do I say that?
In the same short block, next to the capacity. A guest who cannot use the stairs needs that fact before they enquire. Do not mark the whole restaurant step-free because the ground floor is.
Does Adiamo give the room its own website?
Use the restaurant’s published page. Write the capacity, the offer, and the way to ask on that page. A second site is for a second restaurant, not for a room behind this door.