What are the restaurant maps available online?
Traditionally, when people were looking for a new restaurant, they’d pick up a copy of Zagat or some other fancy food guide. But in just a few short years, online maps have come a long way and now also offer local information on businesses, shops, and restaurants. Sites like Google Maps allow users to create their own maps of favorite establishments that they can save or share with friends and family. There are hundreds of food maps online, though some notable ideas have made it to the top.
On the west coast, what could be better than eating an authentic Mexican taco from a truck? With heaping portions, tons of options, and mom’s homemade guacamole, you can’t go wrong. You can’t get that level of deliciousness from a restaurant, Californians say. However, it can be difficult to locate these trucks, especially if you are from out of town. Thus Yumtacos was born.
Creator Joshua Lurie-Terrell of Sacramento, California said he’s been keeping a list of the best taco trucks for quite some time. “As soon as my friends found out I had this list, people were calling me all the time,” he admits. From there, transferring the data to a Google map was no problem. Once the site was live, people could add their own taco truck sightings. Yum Tacos focuses primarily on California, though authentic Mexican taco trucks have been traced from as far away as Baltimore, Maryland.
Another site, Chinesefoodmap, is based on mapping Chinese restaurant locations for Chinese immigrants. Web users will also have access to reviews, menus, driving directions and other local information. Creator Brian Hui first created this Chinese-only site, focusing on Chinese food establishments in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. However, the site has grown nationally to metropolitan areas like Houston, Seattle and Atlanta, and inevitably an English version also appeared.
Google Maps users have created several restaurant “mashups” based on the Google template. One of the most prominent sites is Menurequest, which has more than 5,000 links in New York, San Diego, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Napa Valley, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington DC. Users can visit the restaurant’s website, read reviews, get directions and make reservations online through this amazing map. These are just a few of the food maps available to culinary curators. Maybe your own city has a site designed just for hungry locals like you.