When someone discovers your restaurant on Instagram for the first time — through a tagged post, a search, or a recommendation — the first thing they do after glancing at your grid is look at your Highlights. Those little circles beneath your bio are your permanent Instagram shop window, visible to every visitor regardless of when your Stories were posted. Yet most restaurants either ignore Highlights entirely or fill them with random, unorganised Stories that tell a new visitor nothing useful.
A well-structured Instagram Highlights strategy for restaurants turns your profile into a self-service resource for potential diners. It answers the questions they have before they even ask them: what does the food look like, where are you, what do customers say, what events do you run, who are the people behind it? Done well, your Highlights can do the job of a website for the significant proportion of diners who will never click away from Instagram to research your restaurant.
What Highlights Are and Why They Matter
Instagram Highlights are curated collections of Stories that you permanently pin to your profile. Unlike regular Stories, which disappear after 24 hours, Highlights remain on your profile indefinitely until you remove them. They appear as circular icons below your bio, each labelled with a name and represented by a cover image you choose.
The strategic importance of Highlights comes from their placement. They are the first interactive element below your bio — before the grid, before a visitor starts scrolling posts. A new visitor who wants to know more about your restaurant before following or booking will look here first. This is why the content and organisation of your Highlights is a first-impression decision, not an afterthought.
The 5–7 Highlights Every Restaurant Should Have
Through a combination of what diners actually look for and what drives the most meaningful profile engagement, there are five to seven Highlights that work consistently well for restaurants. The first and most important is Menu. This Highlight should contain Stories showing your current menu — both the dishes themselves and, if possible, individual items with names and brief descriptions. Diners want to see what you serve before they commit to visiting.
The second is Location and Hours. Include your address, a map screenshot or link, your opening hours for each day of the week, and any parking or transport information. This sounds basic, but it is one of the most commonly searched pieces of information a visitor wants. The third is Reviews or UGC (user-generated content). Screenshot genuine reviews from Google, TripAdvisor, or tagged posts from happy customers. Social proof on your own Instagram profile is enormously persuasive for undecided visitors.
Events is a powerful Highlight for restaurants that run regular programming — wine nights, tasting menus, private dining, live music. Keep this one current so visitors can see what is coming up. Team or Behind the Scenes gives your restaurant personality and face — introduce your chef, show your prep kitchen, celebrate a team member's anniversary. Finally, Press or Awards is worth including if you have been featured in publications, won awards, or received notable recognition. This adds credibility and context that your regular content may not convey.
Creating Branded Highlight Covers
The visual consistency of your Highlights matters for the same reason your grid aesthetic matters — it signals professionalism and brand coherence to new visitors. Branded Highlight covers are custom images that appear as the icon for each Highlight circle. Without custom covers, Instagram defaults to showing the most recent Story in that Highlight, which is often random and visually inconsistent.
Canva offers free templates for Instagram Highlight covers and makes it straightforward to create a set using consistent colours, fonts, and icon styles. Choose a background colour that matches your brand palette and simple, legible icons or text for each category. A consistent set of covers — all using the same background colour with a white icon, for example — creates an immediately professional impression and makes each Highlight category instantly identifiable.
What to Put Inside Each Highlight
Inside each Highlight, the goal is to tell a clear, concise story relevant to that category. Keep each Highlight to a maximum of 20 Stories — beyond that, content becomes difficult to navigate and visitors lose the thread. Prioritise your most visually strong and informative Stories and archive the weaker ones.
For your Menu Highlight, include your most photogenic dishes with clear names. Update it whenever your menu changes significantly. For Reviews, add new testimonials as they come in and remove older ones periodically to keep the collection fresh. For Events, archive past events promptly so the Highlight only shows upcoming or recent programming. Inside each Highlight, the most recent Stories appear first, so always add new content at the front rather than allowing it to chronologically pile up.
A Strategy for Keeping Highlights Fresh
A Highlights section that was last updated six months ago tells a visitor that your Instagram presence is not actively managed — which may not reflect reality but creates a negative impression. Build a monthly review of your Highlights into your social media routine.
Each month, check each Highlight for content that is out of date — last season's menu dishes, events that have passed, team members who have left. Remove anything that is no longer accurate. Add a recent review, a new behind-the-scenes Story, or an upcoming event. The review should take no more than 15–20 minutes and ensures your profile is always presenting an accurate, current picture of your restaurant to new visitors.
Making Your Highlights Do the Work of a Website
For many diners — particularly younger demographics — Instagram is the primary research tool when choosing where to eat. They will not visit your website; they will scroll your grid, watch a few Stories, and then look through your Highlights. A well-built Highlights section means they can find your menu, your location, your opening hours, your reviews, and a sense of your atmosphere without ever leaving Instagram.
This is particularly valuable for restaurants that lack a strong website, but it applies to all restaurants. The fewer barriers between a visitor's discovery of your profile and their decision to book, the more conversions your Instagram presence will generate. Your Highlights are the most direct way to reduce that distance.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Highlights should a restaurant have on Instagram? Between five and seven is the optimal range for most restaurants. Fewer than five tends to leave important questions unanswered. More than seven can feel overwhelming and harder to navigate. Focus on the categories that answer the questions a new visitor is most likely to have: menu, location, reviews, and atmosphere.
Do I need a certain number of followers to use Instagram Highlights? No. Highlights are available to all Instagram accounts regardless of follower count. You simply need to have posted at least one Story to create your first Highlight. You can also create Highlights directly from archived Stories, so you can build your initial Highlights from past content even before you start posting new Stories specifically for them.
How do I create custom Highlight covers without graphic design skills? Canva is the easiest tool for this. Search "Instagram Highlight covers" in Canva's template library and you will find dozens of free templates. Choose one set, customise the colours to match your brand, replace the default icons with those relevant to your categories, and download each cover as a PNG. The whole process takes about 30 minutes for a complete set of covers.
Ready to turn your restaurant's story into content that fills tables? Get your free restaurant content plan from Hero Content.