15 AI Prompts Every Local Business Owner Should Keep in Their Notes App

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TL;DR: The owners who get real value from AI aren’t the ones with the best tools. They’re the ones who stopped typing prompts from scratch. Here are 15 prompts I’d keep in a notes app if I ran a restaurant, bar, or local shop. Copy them, fill in the brackets, reuse forever.

Every time I sit with an owner and open ChatGPT or Claude together, the same thing happens. They type something vague (“write a post about our happy hour”), get something generic, and conclude AI isn’t that useful. Then I show them a prompt with real context in it, and their face changes.

The difference isn’t the model. It’s that a good prompt is 80% context and 20% ask. Nobody has time to write that context fresh every day, so you write it once and save it.

First, the one block you paste before everything

Save this as “ABOUT US” and paste it at the top of any new chat:

Business: [NAME], a [TYPE] in [CITY/NEIGHBORHOOD].
Customers: [who they are, e.g. "locals 30-55, families on weekends, office lunch crowd weekdays"].
Voice: [3 words, e.g. "warm, casual, a little funny"]. We say [phrases you use]. We never say [phrases you hate].
Known for: [2-3 things].
Current specials/events: [update this line weekly].

Two minutes to write, and it makes every prompt below ten times better.

Marketing (5)

  1. Weekly social batch: “Write 5 Instagram captions for this week, one each: menu item, behind the scenes, customer shoutout, event or special, engagement question. 40-80 words each, end with a call to action, 5 hashtags. Details: [paste this week’s specifics].”
  2. Event push: “We’re hosting [EVENT] on [DATE]. Write: a Facebook event description, a 2-sentence Instagram caption, a 3-line email blurb, and a text message under 160 characters.”
  3. Google Business post: “Write a Google Business Profile update under 100 words announcing [THING]. Plain, no hashtags, include one clear next step.”
  4. Slow-night idea list: “Our slowest night is [DAY]. Give me 10 promotion ideas that cost under $100 to run and don’t discount the whole menu. Rank by effort.”
  5. Email newsletter: “Write a monthly email to regulars. Sections: one thing that’s new, one story from the month, one reason to come in this week. Under 250 words. Subject line options: 3.”

Reputation (3)

  1. Review replies: “Reply to these Google reviews in our voice. Positive: under 60 words, mention one specific from the review. Negative: acknowledge, take responsibility, invite them to contact me at [EMAIL]. Reviews: [paste].”
  2. Complaint triage: “Here’s a message from an unhappy customer: [paste]. Tell me what they actually want, whether this is a refund situation, and draft a reply that de-escalates without over-promising.”
  3. Review pattern check: “Here are our last 30 reviews: [paste]. What are the 3 most repeated compliments and the 3 most repeated complaints? Be specific and quote them.”

Operations (4)

  1. Job listing: “Write a job post for [ROLE] at our place. Lead with what the job is actually like, pay range [RANGE], schedule [SCHEDULE]. Sound like a human wrote it. Under 200 words.”
  2. Training doc: “Turn these notes into a one-page training checklist a new [ROLE] can follow on day one: [paste rough notes].”
  3. Vendor email: “Write a short, firm but friendly email to [VENDOR] about [ISSUE]. Ask for [SPECIFIC FIX] by [DATE].”
  4. Policy in plain English: “Rewrite this policy so a customer reads it once and understands it: [paste]. Keep it under 80 words, no legal tone.”

Thinking (3)

  1. Decision pressure-test: “I’m thinking about [DECISION]. Argue against it as hard as you can. Then tell me what would need to be true for it to be a good idea.”
  2. Menu or product edit: “Here’s our menu: [paste]. Which items would you cut, which would you rename, and why? Consider margin, how they read to a first-time customer, and kitchen complexity.”
  3. Weekly reflection: “Here’s what happened this week: [3-5 bullets]. What’s the one thing I should fix next week, and what’s one thing I should do more of?”

Three habits that make these work

Always paste ABOUT US first. A prompt without context gives you a template. A prompt with context gives you a draft.

Edit before you use anything. AI gets you to 80%. Your job is the last 20%, and that 20% is where your voice lives.

Save the good outputs. When a caption or reply lands, paste it back into your notes as an example. Next time, include it in the prompt: “Here’s one we liked: [paste].” The quality jumps.

Try this

Write your ABOUT US block right now. Then pick the one prompt on this list that would save you the most time this week and run it. Fifteen minutes, start to finish.

Justin Peters runs Zoomies Media, an AI-powered marketing agency for local and hospitality businesses in Orlando. This post was drafted with AI assistance and edited by Justin. Read about how this site works.

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