A Costa Rican restaurant has two audiences that are almost never served by the same content: the neighbour who eats there midweek and the visitor who passes through once. Confusing them is the mistake that costs the most tables.

What fills tables midweek

  • Sound. The cut, the crunch, the griddle. In food service, audio does more work than image.
  • The price of the set lunch or dish of the day. Visible. Not showing it generates immediate distrust with the local audience.
  • The arrival walkthrough. What the entrance looks like, where to park, what the first table is like.
  • The atmosphere at the real hour. A Wednesday at midday, with the people actually there. An empty room filmed at four in the afternoon communicates the opposite.
  • The dish that sells most. Not the most photogenic.

The other audience: the visitor

For tourists, what works is different. They need to know whether there is an English menu, whether cards are accepted, whether it is spicy, and what exactly a set lunch or the national breakfast dish is.

That explanatory content, in English, is the most underused in the sector in Costa Rica. A thirty second video explaining the typical dish converts a visitor who would otherwise go to the international chain next door.

Do not mix the two audiences in the same piece. Commission two, from the same shoot.

Which creators to hire

The local creator from the district for the midweek audience. And for the visitor, a creator who films in English naturally.

And the format almost nobody uses: staff content. The cook explaining why they prepare something a certain way converts better than any review, and does not depend on hiring anyone.

The brief that produces good material

Include: which dishes are filmed, at what hour, what to show of the venue, three hooks, the disclosure wording and the list of what cannot be claimed about allergens.

The Costa Rican calendar

The peaks are the dry season with tourism, Christmas and new year, Mothers Day in August, and Easter week.

Where to go next

In food service, video sells the first visit. Our complete UGC guide for brands explains the rest of the process.