Ask HN: How do companies like Doordash/Postmates get their restaurant info?

2 pointsakadeb1 comment

Is there an open source database of all restaurants in the US that is always updated with new chains' locations? Does the SEC keep this information?

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No and no. Most buy the data from one of a bunch of vendors (like https://www.factual.com/, https://developer.foursquare.com/comparison, http://thewebminer.com/geo, and a bunch of smaller list providers), scrape it from other consumer sites (at least when they’re small), or wait for users to submit the location in order to write the first review (Yelp does some of this).

There are some state-specific data sources, like https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/retail-food-stores. Most food licensing is at the county level, though, so there’s not a single government-maintained nationwide data source.

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