Curious where Boston's insiders are eating and drinking? It's easy to spot lines out the door, but some underlying trends are harder to see.
We took a data-driven look at the question, using Yelp to discover which eateries have been most discussed this month.
To find out who made the list, we looked at Boston businesses on Yelp by category and counted how many reviews each received. Rather than compare them based on number of reviews alone, we calculated a percentage increase in reviews over the past month, and tracked businesses that consistently increased their volume of reviews to identify statistically significant outliers compared to past performance.
Read on to see which spots are riding a trend this summer.
Shaking Seafood
Open since January 2019, this seafood spot is trending compared to other businesses categorized as "Seafood" on Yelp.
Citywide, seafood spots saw a median 1.2 percent increase in new reviews over the past month, but Shaking Seafood saw a 45.8 percent increase, maintaining a sound 4.5-star rating throughout. Moreover, on a month-to-month basis Shaking Seafood's review count increased by more than 370 percent.
It's not the only trending outlier in the seafood category: The Social Register has seen a 19 percent increase in reviews, and Bootleg Special has seen a 9.3 percent bump.
Located at 19 Poplar St. (between Washington and Corinth streets) in Roslindale, Shaking Seafood offers snow crab legs, mussels, crawfish and more.
Popover King
Whether or not you've been hearing buzz about West End's Popover King, the bakery and breakfast and brunch spot, which offers coffee and tea and more, is a hot topic according to Yelp review data.
While businesses categorized as "Breakfast & Brunch" on Yelp saw a median 2.5 percent increase in new reviews over the past month, Popover King bagged a 100 percent increase in new reviews within that timeframe, maintaining a healthy 4.5-star rating.
Open at 74 Canal St. (between Traverse and Market streets) since March 2019, Popover King offers a variety of bread and sweet and savory popovers.
Fox And The Knife
South Boston's Fox And The Knife is also making waves. Open since February 2019 at 28 W. Broadway (between A Street and Dorchester Avenue), the wine bar and Italian spot has seen a 31.6 percent bump in new reviews over the last month, compared to a median review increase of 1.6 percent for all businesses tagged "Italian" on Yelp.
Fox And The Knife offers lamb with carrot polenta, whole red snapper and diver scallops. Over the past month, it's seen its Yelp rating improve from four stars to 4.5 stars.
Casa Caña
Brighton's Casa Caña is the city's buzziest cocktail bar by the numbers.
The cocktail bar and Latin American and breakfast and brunch spot, which opened at 1234 Soldiers Field Road (between Telford Street) in August 2018, increased its new review count by 20.4 percent over the past month, an outlier when compared to the median new review count of 2.2 percent for the Yelp category "Cocktail Bars." It outperformed the previous month by gaining 1.7 times more reviews than expected based on past performance.
It's not the only trending outlier in the cocktail bar category: Citrus & Salt has seen a 10.8 percent increase in reviews.
Casa Caña offers pancakes, omelets, Benedicts, fish tacos and more.
This story was created automatically using local business data, then reviewed and augmented by an editor. Click here for more about what we're doing. Got thoughts? Go here to share your feedback.
