About The Local Report
Restaurant guides built from what locals actually say, not what advertisers pay for.
The problem
Yelp and Google reviews are gamed by review mills, paid placements, and star-bombing. The best restaurant advice has always been word-of-mouth from people who live there. Reddit has that data scattered across thousands of threads. The Local Report synthesizes it into usable guides.
How it works
1. Reddit thread discovery
For each city, we search food-related subreddits (r/[city]food, r/[city], r/travel, r/solotravel) for restaurant recommendation threads. We filter for threads with meaningful discussion (10+ comments) and recent activity.
2. Extraction and normalization
Each thread is processed by AI to extract restaurant names, cuisine types, specific dish recommendations, sentiment, and direct quotes. Restaurant names are normalized across threads so "Sushi Den," "sushi den," and "the sushi place on Pearl" resolve to the same entity.
3. Consensus scoring
Restaurants are ranked by a consensus score that weights mention frequency (log-scaled to prevent a single viral thread from dominating), sentiment ratio, and recency. A restaurant mentioned positively in 15 independent threads is a stronger signal than one with 100 mentions from a single thread.
4. Minimum thresholds
Only restaurants mentioned by at least two independent users make it into the guide. Top-tier restaurants (3+ mentions) get detailed entries with summaries, dish recommendations, and representative quotes.
The methodology described above represents our general approach. Specific parameters (minimum thresholds, weighting, filters) may be adjusted per city based on data availability and quality. The goal is always to surface the most frequently and positively recommended restaurants.
Data freshness
Guides are refreshed when new Reddit threads are analyzed. Each restaurant entry shows the last date it was mentioned on Reddit, so you can gauge how current the consensus is. Threads from the past two years are weighted more heavily than older ones.
Limitations
Reddit skews toward certain demographics and city subreddits vary in size and activity. Some restaurant types (fine dining, established institutions) get more Reddit discussion than others. We surface what Reddit talks about, which may not capture every great restaurant in a city. The guide is a strong starting point, not an exhaustive directory.
No paid placements
Rankings are determined entirely by Reddit consensus data. No restaurant can pay to influence their ranking. We do not accept advertising or sponsorship from restaurants featured in our guides. This policy will be clearly disclosed if it ever changes.
Contact
Questions, feedback, or city requests? Email thegoodsend.co@gmail.com.