New GBP Ordering Controls: What LI Restaurants Should Do

If you run a restaurant on Long Island, there’s a good chance a hungry customer has found you on Google, tapped an order button, and placed that order through a delivery app that takes a cut of the ticket. According to Search Engine Roundtable, Google has now added controls to Google Business Profile ordering that let restaurants turn individual third-party ordering services on or off, right from their own dashboard.

That’s a bigger deal than it sounds. In this post you’ll get a plain-English rundown of what changed, what Google itself says to weigh before you start switching providers off, and a practical audit you can run this week so more of your Google traffic lands on ordering you control. If you’d rather hand the whole thing off, this is exactly the kind of work our Google Business Profile management service covers.

What Google Business Profile Ordering Controls Actually Change

Quick refresher: your Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows up when someone searches for your restaurant on Google Search or Google Maps. It holds your hours, photos, reviews, menu and, for many restaurants, links to order food.

Those ordering links often come from delivery and ordering platforms that send your information to Google through what’s called a feed (a data connection that passes your menu and ordering link along automatically). Until now, if you wanted one of those links gone, you had to chase the platform itself.

Here’s what the Search Engine Roundtable report says has changed:

• You can manage third-party ordering services one by one. Google has added the ability to control ordering providers on an individual basis for restaurants inside Google Business Profile.
• You can disable them completely or partially. The report names Uber Eats, DoorDash, Instacart and Grubhub as examples of services you should be able to turn off.
• Pickup and delivery may be controlled separately. Based on a screenshot Google shared, it looks like you can choose whether a given provider shows as a pickup option, a delivery option, or both.
• No more back-and-forth with each platform. The change was announced on LinkedIn by Lisa Landsman from Google, who explained: "Instead of submitting requests to individual delivery platforms to remove or disconnect a feed, you can now manage and opt out of specific providers directly from your dashboard."

Landsman also wrote that "One of the most frequent requests we hear from restaurant operators is simple: more control over their ordering links." Barry Schwartz, who wrote the Search Engine Roundtable piece, put it more bluntly: this is a feature restaurants have been begging for for many years.

Why This Matters for a Long Island Restaurant’s Bottom Line

Your Google Business Profile is often the very first thing a customer sees. Someone in Huntington searching for dinner, or a family in Massapequa looking for a Friday pizza order, may never visit your website at all. They see your listing, tap an order button, and they’re done. Whatever ordering options sit on that listing decide where the money flows.

That affects you in three practical ways.

Margin on every order

Marketplace delivery apps typically charge restaurants a commission or fee on orders. When an order comes in through your own ordering system instead, you usually keep more of it. You don’t need exact math to see the logic: if your Google listing is pushing a steady share of orders to an app you’d rather not pay, every one of those orders you can redirect to your own system is money back in your pocket.

Control over your brand

Landsman’s announcement framed it this way: "You decide which partners represent your brand on your profile." That matters more than it might seem. If you stopped actively using a platform but its link is still on your listing, customers could be ordering from an old menu with outdated prices or dishes you no longer serve. When that order goes wrong, the customer doesn’t blame the app. They blame you, and sometimes they say so in a review.

Kitchen flow

Every ordering channel is another tablet, another set of notifications, another place for a ticket to get missed during a rush. Google’s announcement says it directly: "If an integration no longer fits your operations, margins, or kitchen flow, you can turn it off yourself." Fewer channels can mean a calmer line on a busy Saturday night.

Don’t Turn Everything Off: Google’s Point About Diner Choice

Here’s where it’s worth slowing down. Turning off every delivery app the moment you get access might feel satisfying, but it could cost you orders.

Google’s own guidance in the announcement makes a fair point. While direct ordering is always a priority, Landsman wrote, keeping a mix of trusted providers can also work in your favor. Diners often stick to the platforms where they hold active subscriptions or stored payment details. Giving them choices can mean capturing an order that might otherwise go elsewhere.

Think about your actual customers. Some people simply prefer the app they already pay for and already have their card saved in. If that option disappears from your listing, some of them will happily switch to your own ordering. Others will just order from the place down the road that still shows up in their favorite app.

There’s also a practical reality for many Long Island restaurants: if you don’t run your own delivery drivers, a third-party app may be the only way you can offer delivery at all. Removing it doesn’t move that delivery customer to your system. It just removes delivery.

So the real question isn’t "apps bad, direct good." It’s which providers have earned their spot on your listing. For each one, ask:

• Are we still actively using this platform, and is our menu on it accurate?
• Does it bring us customers we probably wouldn’t get any other way?
• Can our kitchen fulfill these orders well, every time?
• Do we already offer this same thing (pickup, for example) through our own ordering?

If a provider fails the first or third question, turning it off is an easy call. If it passes all four, it’s probably worth keeping.

Splitting Pickup and Delivery to Favor Your Own Ordering

The partial controls are where the smartest moves usually live. Based on the screenshot Google shared, it appears you can control whether each ordering option shows for pickup, delivery, or both. If your dashboard gives you that choice, consider a setup like this:

• Pickup goes through you. Most restaurants can handle pickup orders through their own website ordering without a marketplace in the middle. If that’s you, consider turning off the pickup option on third-party providers so pickup customers are steered toward your own system.
• Delivery stays with one or two trusted apps. If you don’t deliver yourself, keep delivery turned on for the provider or providers that work best for you.
• Your own ordering is clearly on the listing. Depending on how your ordering is set up, that might mean adding your own ordering link to the profile or confirming that your ordering provider’s connection to Google is active. Either way, check that it’s actually showing up for customers.

This approach keeps the convenience customers expect while shifting the orders you can easily handle yourself back to your own channel.

A 30-Minute Audit for Your Ordering Links

Landsman’s announcement ended with a simple suggestion: take a moment this week to check your profile, review your active ordering channels, and make sure every link leads to an accurate menu and a smooth guest experience. Here’s a step-by-step way to do exactly that.

1. Confirm you have access. You’ll need access to your Business Profile to change these settings. If a former manager, a past marketing company or a previous owner still controls it, start there. Our guide on how to claim a Google Business Profile someone else controls walks through the process.
2. Search for yourself like a customer would. On your phone, search your restaurant’s name on Google Search and on Google Maps. Tap the ordering option and write down every provider that appears, and whether each shows pickup, delivery or both.
3. Test every link. Open each one. Is the menu current? Are prices right? Are your hours correct? If you have more than one location, does each link point to the right one?
4. Test your own ordering path. Go through your own online ordering from start to finish on a phone. Count the taps. Note anything confusing, slow or broken.
5. Make your decisions in the dashboard. Review your active ordering channels. Turn off providers you no longer use or can’t fulfill reliably. Use the pickup and delivery choices, if available, to favor your own ordering where it makes sense.
6. Check your contracts first. As described in the announcement, these controls affect what appears on your Business Profile. Your agreement with a delivery company is a separate matter, so look at your contract terms before you make changes you might need to explain later.
7. Write down what you changed and when. A simple note with the date and the before-and-after settings will make it far easier to judge whether the change helped.
8. Put a recurring reminder on the calendar. Menus change, especially with seasonal shifts out east or new specials. A quick monthly or quarterly check keeps your listing honest.

If you have multiple locations, repeat this for each one. It’s easy to fix the flagship and forget the second spot.

Make Your Own Ordering the Easy Choice

Turning off a provider only helps if your own ordering is genuinely easy to use. A customer who’s used to an app with their card already saved won’t put up with a clunky checkout. If your own system frustrates them, they’ll leave and order somewhere else.

A few things to check on your website and ordering page:

• Speed on a phone. Most of these customers are on mobile and hungry. A slow-loading menu is a lost order.
• An obvious order button. It should be visible the moment someone lands on your homepage, without scrolling or hunting.
• A menu that matches. The menu on your website, your ordering system and your Google listing should say the same thing, with the same prices.
• Guest checkout. Forcing people to create an account before they can order is a common reason they give up.
• Clear pickup times and confirmation. Customers want to know when to show up and that the order actually went through.
• A reason to order direct. If it fits your business, consider a small perk for ordering through your own site, like a loyalty reward or a pickup special. Keep it simple and sustainable.

If your current site makes ordering harder than it should be, it may be time to look at a rebuild with ordering front and center. Our website design and development work starts from exactly that question: what does a customer need to do, and how do we make it effortless?

Mistakes That Can Quietly Cost You Orders

A few traps to avoid as you make changes:

• Removing everything without a working replacement. If you turn off every provider before your own ordering is live and visible on your listing, customers may hit a dead end.
• Cutting delivery when you can’t deliver yourself. Make sure you’re choosing to drop delivery, not doing it by accident.
• Not telling your staff. If the front of house still tells callers to order through an app you just removed, you’ll confuse people. A two-minute huddle fixes that.
• Fixing Google but ignoring the apps themselves. If you keep a provider active, its menu still needs to be accurate inside that app.
• Setting it and forgetting it. Providers, menus and your own operations change. Your listing should keep up.

How to Tell If the Change Is Paying Off

You’ll want to know whether your changes actually moved orders to your own system. A few practical ways to measure it:

• Compare your own online order counts. Look at direct online orders for a few weeks before and after the change. Compare similar periods, since a July weekend and a February Tuesday aren’t a fair match.
• Watch your Business Profile performance data. Your profile’s performance section shows how people interact with your listing, which can help you spot shifts after you make changes.
• Tag your ordering link. If you add your own ordering link to your profile, you can attach a tracking tag (a short code added to the end of a web address so your analytics can tell where the visit came from). That way you can see how many visits and orders came from Google specifically. Our guide to conversion tracking for calls, forms and bookings explains how to set up this kind of measurement without getting lost in the weeds.
• Keep an eye on delivery app volume. If app orders drop but direct orders rise by a similar amount, the shift is working. If app orders drop and direct orders don’t budge, you may have removed an option your customers relied on, and it’s worth revisiting.

Your Move Before the Next Dinner Rush

The simplest next step is to block out half an hour this week, pull up your restaurant on Google from your phone, and see exactly which ordering options customers are getting today. From there, use the audit above to decide which providers stay, which go, and whether pickup and delivery should be handled differently. Small adjustments to your listing can shift where orders land, and you’re finally the one holding the controls.

If you’d like a second set of eyes on your profile or your ordering setup, reach out to MJW Media and we’ll take a look with you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Resources

• Google Business Profile Management
• Local SEO
• How to Claim a Google Business Profile Someone Else Controls
• AI Chatbots for Restaurant Websites: Reservations and FAQs
• Google Business Profile Posts: A Weekly Routine That Boosts Rankings