Photography Tips · Brussels

How Often Should a Brussels Restaurant Refresh Its Menu Photos?

By Dmytro Derkach · Brussels-based commercial photographer

Menu photos are not a one-time investment. Treating them that way is the single most common reason a restaurant’s online presence starts looking stale before the food itself changes.

The baseline rule

At minimum, update photos whenever the menu itself changes. A dish that has been removed but still appears in photos on a delivery app is actively costing orders: customers order it, find out it is unavailable, and the restaurant absorbs both the bad review and the lost trust.

Platform-specific timing

Delivery apps: refresh every 6-12 months even without a menu change, since these platforms favor accounts with recently updated content in their internal ranking.

Google Business Profile: update at least every 30 days, weekly where possible. This is one of the cheapest, highest-impact habits a restaurant can build, since Google visibly rewards active profiles.

Social media: needs new food content weekly, though this does not require a full professional session each time.

Seasonal menus need their own schedule

A restaurant running seasonal specials should plan for 3-4 photo refreshes per year, timed to match menu changes rather than an arbitrary calendar date. Booking this in advance, rather than scrambling when a new season’s menu is already live, keeps photos and menu changes arriving together instead of photos lagging weeks behind.

The mistake that costs the most

Keeping photos of discontinued dishes live is worse than having no photo at all. It sets an expectation the restaurant cannot meet and directly damages both online orders and in-person trust when a customer points at a photo of something no longer on the menu.