Original data · Miami restaurants
What Miami restaurants post on Instagram (2026)
We read the latest posts of 45 Miami restaurant Instagram accounts across Brickell, Wynwood, Little Havana, Miami Beach and Doral. Reels are now the main format, at 54.5% of 486 posts. The median Reel runs 15.6 seconds. And 20 of the 45 restaurants still post fewer than one Reel a week.
Seven findings
How long are Miami restaurant Reels?
Short. We read the length of 264 of the 265 Reels in the sample straight from each public video file. The median is 15.6 seconds.
45.5% run under 15 seconds and another 34.8% land between 15 and 30, so 80.3% of restaurant Reels are over in half a minute. Only 11% run 30 to 60 seconds, and 8.7% pass the one-minute mark. In practice that is a dish, a pour or a room, cut to a few beats. It is a format that rewards a tight edit more than a long shoot: a restaurant does not need more footage to post more Reels, it needs the footage it has cut into short pieces.
How often do Miami restaurants post on Instagram?
The median account in the sample posts 2.4 times a week, measured across the span of its recent posts. That number hides a wide spread.
19 of 45 restaurants post three or more times a week, usually mixing Reels with carousels of the menu, events and the room. 7 accounts (15.6%) post less than once a week, even though every account in the sample had posted within the 30 days before we read it. The typical account had posted 1.3 days before collection, so these are active accounts, not abandoned ones. Inactive accounts were excluded on purpose: the question is what working restaurants publish, not how many gave up.
How many restaurants post fewer than one Reel a week?
20 of 45, or 44.4%. The median restaurant publishes 1.4 Reels a week, but almost half of the sample sits below one.
This is the gap between the format restaurants lean on and the rhythm they keep. Reels are the majority of what the sample posts, yet nearly half of the accounts go more than a week between them. The two numbers are not in conflict: an account that posts twice a month can still be mostly Reels. What it shows is that the constraint for many restaurants is cadence, not format. They already know Reels are the post that matters; what is missing is a steady weekly supply of finished, short edits.
Do Miami restaurants caption in Spanish or English?
Mostly English, even in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods. 36 of 45 accounts (80%) caption mainly in English, 6 (13.3%) mix both languages and 3 (6.7%) write mainly in Spanish.
Counted post by post, Spanish appears in 76 of 486 captions (15.6%). The Spanish and bilingual accounts cluster where you would expect: 4 in Doral and 3 in Little Havana, against 0 in Brickell. Language was classified by counting common Spanish and English words in each caption, with no AI model, so a caption of only emoji or hashtags counts as neither. A restaurant can of course speak Spanish at the table and still write its feed in English for tourists and newcomers.
Do restaurants write captions and use hashtags?
Almost always a caption, about half the time a hashtag. 99.4% of the posts we read carry a caption, and the median account writes about 37 words per post: enough for a dish name, an offer, hours or a reservation line.
Hashtags are fading. Only 49.2% of posts use even one. On-screen text and burned-in subtitles inside the videos are a different question, and we did not measure them: the post data Instagram exposes publicly does not say whether a Reel has text on screen, and guessing from thumbnails would be a guess. If you read a statistic about subtitles on restaurant Reels, check how it was measured before you repeat it.
Do bigger restaurant accounts post more Reels?
The largest ones do. The 8 accounts with more than 100,000 followers give a median 76.4% of their posts to Reels. The 17 accounts between 20,000 and 100,000 sit at 41.7%, and the 6 smallest accounts, 1,000 to 5,000 followers, at 55.1%.
The median account has 26,090 followers. This is a correlation in a small sample, not proof that Reels grew those accounts: large accounts often have a team or an agency, and that alone changes what they post. What it does show is the house style of Miami's most-followed restaurants, which is mostly short video. Each group is small, so read these medians as a direction, not a rule.
What do the posts look like, by format and Reel length?
Share of 486 posts by format, and how long the 264 measured Reels run. The table breaks the sample down by neighborhood.
Post format
- Reels54.5%
- Carousels31.3%
- Photos14.2%
Reel length
- Under 15 s45.5%
- 15 to 30 s34.8%
- 30 to 60 s11%
- Over 60 s8.7%
| Neighborhood | Accounts | Reels (median) | Spanish or mixed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brickell | 11 | 60% | 0 |
| Wynwood | 10 | 46% | 1 |
| Little Havana | 8 | 49.5% | 3 |
| Miami Beach | 7 | 75% | 1 |
| Doral | 9 | 54.5% | 4 |
Neighborhood groups hold 7 to 11 accounts each. Small groups move a lot with one account, so compare them loosely.
How was this study measured?
We started from Google Maps: the top 15 results for "restaurants in" each of Brickell, Wynwood, Little Havana, Miami Beach and Doral, 75 places in all. Each restaurant's Instagram account was taken from the link on its own website, never guessed from its name. 56 sites linked an account, which came to 52 distinct accounts once shared accounts were merged.
We read each public profile and its latest 12 posts once, on October 14, 2026, and skipped pinned posts. An account stayed in the sample if it was public, returned at least six unpinned posts and had posted in the previous 30 days. 45 accounts and 486 posts passed. Nothing was followed, liked, messaged or commented on, and no restaurant is named here.
Measured: Post format share (Reel, carousel, photo) · Posts per week · Reels per week · Reel length in seconds · Caption language · Caption presence and length · Hashtag use · Follower range
Exclusions, definitions and limits
- Excluded: 3 accounts with no post in 30 days and 4 with fewer than six unpinned posts. Restaurants whose site linked no Instagram, blocked automated visits or had no website were not counted (19 places).
- Posts per week = posts in the window minus one, divided by the days between the oldest and newest post, times seven. Reels per week = posts per week times the account's Reel share. 54 pinned posts were skipped across the sample.
- Reel length was read from the header of each Reel's public video file. Caption language was assigned from common Spanish and English words; a caption with too few words counts as neither.
- Limits: one reading on one day, 12 posts per account, and restaurants that rank on Google Maps and link their Instagram, which leans toward established places. Not measured: on-screen text, subtitles, Stories, ads or engagement.
What does this mean if you run a restaurant in Miami?
The sample says the format question is settled: short Reels, mostly under 30 seconds, are what Miami restaurants post most. The open question for 44.4% of them is rhythm. A Reel a week, cut from footage the restaurant already shoots on a phone, is enough to leave that group; matching the median account means about 1.4 a week.
Esteban Moreno Media edits restaurant and food video remotely from Miami. If you want to see how that works, these pages explain the restaurant work and the weekly editing plan, with prices on the page.