One more reason why I don't trust POIs I find on Google Maps.
I always try to find the actual business' page to check for phones and opening and closing hours.
I always try to find the actual business' page to check for phones and opening and closing hours.
I regularly run into local places that use their Facebook page as their de facto virtual storefront, but that format could be much better customized for individual business varieties' needs, even putting aside the limitations of living in Facebook's garden.
"Here's your (crummy, last-updated-2011) web site today, and here's the beautiful one we've already built for you, including full online reservations and take out ordering. With just a few clicks you can customize it with photos or a new menu. Pay us $NN/month and we'll immediately switch your domain to point at this shiny new site."
Squarespace could move in this direction, too, by continuing to specialize and extend its templates until a good looking, functional site takes an average of minutes. But Google has the advantage of already knowing enough about the average small business to build it a better web site in literally milliseconds.
How can it be "unprofessional"? That's simply not their profession. Why should we judge them on that?
What an odd comment.
Your comment is far odder than mine.
Google runs a GYBO (Get Your Business Online) program doing that, down to domain name, in an effort to upsell things like GApps once the small business is ready, I'm not sure how popular it is.
Anymore? That is the traditional way of finding that kind of information. Sure, there was a brief period of time when only technically sophisticate businesses were online, but as you say, that is no longer the case.
No listings sites seem to anticipate that a place can have opening hours but be "booking not always required"; indeed level of booking requirement doesn't appear to feature in any local business listings pages.
This can't be that rare as another business on our short road has the same booking policy ("not always required"). I understand entirely that Google/Facebook/Yelp/etc. want to pin down strict times but an alternate string field with suggested standardised forms would seem sensible for many businesses.
Thus opening times aren't entered and the only thing you can do is contact us to enquire what our policy is. It's a shortcoming of the listings database design.
Regardless, it's a pain to navigate flash restaurant menus. Just give me a plain list!