Google Allows Users to Search Menus

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Mar 3, 6:37AM EST · Published Mar 2, 10:12AM EST

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Among the thousand of products and services Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) offers free to users, it would be hard to imagine a new one, or, at least one which could draw a lot of traffic. But, the search company has come up with a new, original service — the opportunity to check the menus of countless restaurants as a means to decide where to eat.

In a blog post for Google+, engineers wrote recently:

Next time you’re planning a brunch or a date night, check to make sure the menu has something to satisfy everyone in your group, without having to browse through several restaurants’ websites. Just search Google to show you the menu for the eatery you’re considering and you can see it right on the top of your search page—complete with tabs for different parts of the menu (like appetizers, brunch or dinner) and, often, prices—before you make your reservation. Menus are available in the U.S. only for now. Bon appétit!

Google occasionally introduces something which can disrupt an entire industry. The restaurant industry relied on paper menus for decades, and perhaps longer. People had to physically show up to make decisions. The internet has changed that somewhat. However, many restaurants do not display their entire lists of food and drink. Google means to change that, whether the industry likes it or not.

The Google feature could take two victims — Foursquare and Yelp, which already offer restaurant menus. Since neither has anywhere near the traffic Google search does, each could be hurt by a drop in market share in the menu viewing business. But the largest hurt could be to restaurants. Anything that allows people to make decisions about what to eat and drink before they make a physical visit may take away the foot traffic so many restaurants rely on.

For Google, menus search is just one more of an army of features. For the restaurant industry, it could be a large injury.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.