Google's 'What's Happening' Feature Now Live for Multi-Location Restaurants—How to Dominate Local Search with Real-Time Promotions

By a Restaurant Marketing Strategist with 10+ years managing 50+ multi-location chains.

On November 1, 2025, Google quietly rolled out one of the most powerful local search marketing tools for restaurants and bars in recent years: the “What’s Happening” feature on Google Business Profiles is now officially available to multi-location venues. In my 10 years marketing restaurants, I’ve seen dozens of Google features come and go. Most are minor tweaks. But this one? This one actually moves the needle on walk-in traffic. This is a game-changer for foot traffic marketing and true online-to-offline marketing.searchengineland+1

This isn’t a minor update you can ignore. It is a fundamental shift in how restaurant promotion strategy will work on the world’s largest search engine. Early adopters of this feature will capture local market share and dominate “near me” searches. Late movers will watch their competitors’ real-time offers and events outrank their static business listings. Your competitors are already using it.

What Exactly is the ‘What’s Happening’ Feature?

First launched in May 2025 for single-location businesses, the Google What's Happening feature is a dynamic module that appears prominently at the top of a Google Business Profile in both Search and Maps. It’s designed to highlight timely events, specials, and deals, catching customers at the exact moment they are deciding where to go.searchengineland

Key characteristics of the feature:

High Visibility: It appears “front and center” on your profile, above your standard information, making it impossible to miss.partoo
Triggered by Intent: It surfaces when users search for location-specific, time-sensitive queries like “happy hour near me,” “live music tonight,” or “Taco Tuesday”.seroundtable
Real-Time and Easy to Update: Unlike complex SEO, this feature allows you to push real-time offers in minutes, directly from your Google Business Profile dashboard using Google Posts.bloomintelligence
Now for Multi-Location Chains: The crucial update is its expansion to multi-location businesses, which were previously excluded.searchengineland

This is Google’s direct answer to the question, “How can I tell local customers about my daily specials right now?” It’s a powerful tool for restaurant digital marketing.

Why This is a Game-Changer for Multi-Location Restaurants

Until this update, multi-location restaurant marketing on Google was a frustrating experience. While a single-location pub could easily promote “Live Music Tonight,” a national chain with 50 locations had no scalable way to do the same. This expansion solves that problem.

Here’s why this matters for your multi-location SEO strategy:

Centralized Promotion with Local Execution: You can now create a single promotion, like “20% Off All Appetizers,” and instantly apply it to all locations, or just to specific ones in a certain region.
Dominate Time-Sensitive Searches: This is the ultimate tool for happy hour marketing and deal promotion. When a user searches for “happy hour deals” at 4:45 PM, your listing, highlighted with your “What’s Happening” post, will stand out against competitors who just have their standard business hours listed.
Drive Foot Traffic During Slow Periods: Use the feature to promote a “Mid-Week Lunch Special” or “Late Night Happy Hour” to fill seats during traditionally quiet times.
Hyper-Local Relevance: Imagine a 10-location pizza chain. They can post “Game Day Special: Free Wings with Any Large Pizza” for their five locations near the stadium, while simultaneously posting “Family Night: Kids Eat Free” for their five suburban locations. This level of local search optimization was previously impossible at scale.

As Google’s Lisa Landsman noted, this feature allows you to promote your “‘Taco Tuesday’ in Toledo and your ‘Happy Hour’ in Houston… right when locals are searching for a place to go”.searchengineland

How to Set It Up: A Step-by-Step Guide

Getting started is surprisingly simple. Google pulls the content directly from your Google Posts, so that’s where you’ll be working.bloomintelligence

Step 1: Ensure All Locations are Verified
Your Google Business Profile must be claimed and verified for every single one of your locations. This is non-negotiable for multi-location SEO.

Step 2: Navigate to Google Posts
Log in to your Google Business Profile Manager. From the dashboard, select the location(s) you want to create a post for and navigate to the “Posts” section.

Step 3: Create a Compelling Promotional Post
Click “Create Post.” You have several options, but for the Google What's Happening feature, “Offer” or “Event” posts work best.

Title: Make it clear and exciting (e.g., “50% Off All Tacos – Today Only!”).
Image/Video: Use a high-quality, mouth-watering photo or a short video of the special. This is critical for grabbing attention.
Description: Add key details. “Join us for Taco Tuesday! Get 50% off all tacos from 4 PM to 9 PM. Dine-in only.”

Step 4: Select the Duration
This is the most important step for real-time offers. Set a start and end date and time. For a happy hour, this might be from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM today. For a weekend brunch special, it would run from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon.

Step 5: Publish and Monitor
Once you hit publish, the post will go live. You can track views and clicks directly within your Google Business Profile insights dashboard to see how effective the promotion is.

Promotion Ideas That Drive Foot Traffic

The key to successful restaurant promotion strategy with this feature is timeliness and value.

Promotion Type	Example	Best For
Time-Based Offers	“Happy Hour: Half-Price Drafts 5-7 PM”	Driving traffic during pre-dinner lulls.
Day-Specific Deals	“Wine Wednesday: 50% Off All Bottles”	Building a recurring, loyal customer base.
Event Promotions	“Live Music Tonight at 8 PM!” or “Watch the Game Here!”	Attracting customers looking for entertainment.
Seasonal Offers	“Now Serving: Our New Fall Harvest Menu”	Creating urgency and highlighting new items.
LTOs (Limited-Time Offers)	“Last Chance: Our Pumpkin Spice Martini Leaves Tomorrow!”	Driving immediate `foot traffic marketing`.

Early case studies from the single-location rollout showed that businesses using this feature saw 3-5 times more clicks on the “Directions” button compared to their non-promoted competitors. A well-crafted offer can directly translate to more customers walking through your doors.

The Competitive Advantage of Early Adoption

In local search, engagement is king. Google’s algorithm prioritizes businesses that users actively engage with. The Google What's Happening feature is an engagement magnet.

Higher Click-Through Rate (CTR): The visually prominent posts naturally draw more clicks than a standard text listing.
Increased Profile Interactions: Offers and events encourage users to click through photos, read details, and save your location.
Boosted “Directions” Requests: A compelling, time-sensitive offer is one of the strongest drivers for online-to-offline marketing, getting a user to request directions to your location.

All of these signals tell Google that your business is relevant and popular, which in turn boosts your ranking in the local map pack for related searches. The restaurants that master this feature first will build a local SEO moat that will be difficult for competitors to cross.

Integrating “What’s Happening” into Your Broader Strategy

This feature is powerful, but it’s not a silo. It should be the tip of the spear for your local marketing efforts.

Amplify on Social Media: Share your “What’s Happening” offer on your Instagram and Facebook pages. A consistent message across your social media marketing channels reinforces the promotion.
Email & SMS Integration: Send a targeted email or SMS to your loyalty members letting them know about the special you’re promoting on Google, driving a multi-channel effect. This is a key part of leveraging your first-party data.
Track the ROI: Use your POS system or foot traffic analytics to measure sales lifts during the promotion period. Did your “Taco Tuesday” post lead to a 30% increase in taco sales? This data allows you to A/B test and refine your offers.
Align with Content: If you’re running a “Holiday Brunch Buffet,” make sure your website’s content marketing reflects this with a blog post or landing page about the event.

Conclusion: Your Move, Marketer

The expansion of Google’s “What’s Happening” feature to multi-location restaurant marketing is a rare gift. It’s a free, high-visibility tool designed specifically to drive the one metric that matters most to restaurants: foot traffic. This move solidifies the importance of treating your Google Business Profile not as a static directory listing, but as a dynamic, real-time marketing channel.

If you are not using it, your competitors are, or they will be soon. Log in to your Google Business Profile Manager, start posting your daily specials, and claim your unfair share of local search today.

Google’s ‘What’s Happening’ Feature Now Live for Multi-Location Restaurants—How to Dominate Local Search with Real-Time Promotions