As more and more consumers turn to their smart phones when deciding where to eat, the restaurant app is gaining popularity with all demographics. Here we’ve listed some of the top players- would we find your restaurant on them?

Urbanspoon – A useful app for finding and categorizing local restaurants, users rely on the Urbanspoon app for pictures, price ranges and reviews of nearby eateries when choosing their next meal. Urbanspoon has quick call and map links as well as a voting system that allows users to share the restaurants they like. It’s available for free to iPhone, Android and Blackberry users.

LocalEats – Good for boutique restaurants as they only list local establishments- no national chains allowed. The LocalEats app is available for iPhone, Android and Blackberry users and gives a range of search options and categories. Users can view a restaurant’s website, get details on price and menu, view pictures, leave comments and share their favorites with friends online.

Foodspotting – Since being listed as iPhone’s app of the week in October 2010, Foodspotting has soared in popularity. The app is available to iPhone and Android users and uses Google maps to show local restaurants with picture icons, usually picturing the restaurant’s signature dish. Foodspotting allows users to share their food experiences pictorally, taking snapshots of dishes they want to recommend instead of writing reviews or comments. Other users can like photos that appeal to them and save them to their list of dishes to try. If a picture is worth a thousand words, you want to make sure you’re on Foodspotting.

MenuPages – Simply stated, MenuPages is a catalogue of restaurant menus. Restaurants list menus for free and consumers view them for free. It’s a simple but effective way to put yourself in front of hungry consumers searching out their next meal.

Yelp – With Yelp, users are encouraged to connect socially with friends online by checking in from different locations. While Yelp is particularly focused on user ratings and reviews of businesses (25% of which are restaurants), it also offers other handy functions like a tip calculator, bookmarking favorite locations and viewing various restaurant specifications like wheelchair access, noise level and parking availability.

VegOut – VegOut is a phone app that allows vegetarian and vegan consumers to locate area restaurants that cater to their dietary needs. Users can see ratings and reviews of a restaurant and access their website and phone number through quick links.

People love talking about food, sharing their restaurant experiences and recommending favorite dishes they’ve discovered. If you serve good food and make it easy for your customers to talk about it by taking advantage of popular restaurant apps, then you’ve created the best kind of marketing there is- free and evangelical.

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About Restaurant Hospitality Marketing

Restaurant Hospitality Marketing is a full service, marketing firm that specializes in online digital media for the restaurant and hospitality industry.  We create beautiful, socially shareable, search optimized, content-driven, responsive websites that will bring you more customers and reservations. We also offer mobile marketing, social media content marketing, search engine optimization and marketing, reputation management, video production, and print media.