Helping Independent Restaurants Compete in AI Search
Restaurant Owners Are Fighting an Unfair Battle
When people ask ChatGPT or Google where to eat, chains dominate. So do competitors who've been around longer with 500+ reviews built over a decade. Not because their food is better—because they have enterprise tech teams or a ten-year head start building digital infrastructure.
73% of diners now ask AI where to eat.
Tourists planning trips. Locals deciding where to go tonight. Most independent restaurants don't show up in those answers.
How I Discovered the Gap
I'm Miki Atonio. For years, I've worked restaurant content shoots across Southern California with Michele Leocadio (@something_worth_sharing)—5 Years Level 10 Yelp Elite, Google Local Guide Level 9, 62 Million + Views, 21.7k Instagram Followers
We'd spend hours shooting incredible restaurants. Michele's content drove reservations. Her reviews built trust. People showed up.
Between shoots, I tested what happened when people asked AI where to eat. "Best Mexican food in Orange County with gluten-free options?" "Open late in Fullerton under $50 per person?"
The restaurants we just shot? Rarely mentioned. AI suggested chains or established spots with years of reviews.
Then I realized customers had fundamentally changed. They stopped browsing lists. They ask one conversational question and trust the top recommendations. Tourists and locals. Same behavior. Same reliance on AI.
If AI can't read your menu, hours, and vibe, it quietly sends diners somewhere else. No alert. Just lost tables.
Miki Atonio - Founder, Elev8ed Media Hub
So We Built Something Different
Restaurant owners don't have time to manage five vendors. You're in operations seventy hours a week. The last thing you need is another marketing pitch.
We built Elev8ed to be the last marketing company you'll hire.
Michele brings Yelp Elite credibility and authentic content that converts. I bring technical infrastructure that makes you compete with chains on equal footing. One system. One partnership.
Your website becomes AI-readable. Your social media gets professional content optimized for humans and AI. Your Google Business Profile gets paired with Yelp Elite reviews AI trusts 9.3x more. Your content strategy gets built from actual search data, not guesses.
One monthly engagement. Everything working together.
Why this matters: We're preserving independent restaurant ownership. Helping people who built something from nothing compete against corporations with unlimited budgets and competitors with decade-long head starts.
Your regular customers are your foundation. Tourists are your amplifier. We help both work harder for you.
We're based in Southern California where Michele's embedded in the restaurant community. But the platform works nationwide. Local expertise paired with enterprise infrastructure.
This isn't a prom date. It's a partnership.