Curious where Philadelphia's in-the-know crowd is 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 and SafeGraph, a dataset of commercial points of interest and their visitor patterns, to deduce which local businesses have been getting a noteworthy increase in attention this month.
To find out who made the list, we first looked at Philadelphia 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. Then we analyzed foot traffic data from SafeGraph to validate the trends.
Read on to see which spots are on a hot streak, right now.
Kale Yeah
Open since 2019, this breakfast and brunch spot, which offers salads, sandwiches and more, is trending compared to other businesses categorized as "Breakfast & Brunch" on Yelp.
Citywide, breakfast and brunch spots saw a median 1.7% increase in new reviews over the past month, but Kale Yeah saw a 90.9% increase, with a slight upward trend from a 4.5-star rating a month ago to five stars today. Moreover, on a month-to-month basis Kale Yeah's review count increased by more than 1,000%.
It's not the only trending outlier in the breakfast and brunch category: Middle Child has seen an 8% increase in reviews.
Located at 301 Spring Garden St. in Northern Liberties, Kale Yeah offers items like build-your-own salad bowls, sandwiches and light breakfast fare. Look for the soy garlic tofu salad bowl topped with veggies.
Kale Yeah is open from 8 a.m.–7:30 p.m. on weekdays. (It's closed on weekends.)
Glory Beer Bar & Kitchen
Whether or not you've been hearing buzz about Old City's Glory Beer Bar & Kitchen, the well-established beer bar and New American spot, which offers sandwiches and more, is a hot topic according to Yelp review data.
While businesses categorized as "American (New)" on Yelp saw a median 1.5% increase in new reviews over the past month, Glory Beer Bar & Kitchen bagged a 4.1% increase in new reviews within that time frame, maintaining a strong 4.5-star rating. As for foot traffic, Glory Beer Bar & Kitchen saw visits double in the past month, according to SafeGraph data.
There's more that's trending on Philadelphia's New American scene: Harper's Garden has seen a 7.7% increase in reviews, and Sandler's On 9th and Bourbon Blue have seen 7.1 and 0.6% increases, respectively.
Open at 126 Chestnut St. since 2018, Glory Beer Bar & Kitchen offers starters like mac and cheese, and main dishes like lamb sliders and baby back ribs.
Glory Beer Bar & Kitchen is open from 4 p.m.–2 a.m. on Monday and 11:45 a.m.–2 a.m. on Tuesday-Sunday. According to SafeGraph, it usually gets busy on Fridays and Saturdays, and it attracts a quarter of its total visitors over those two days, so go on Mondays if you want to avoid the rush.
Mike's BBQ
East Passyunk's Mike's BBQ is the city's buzziest sandwich spot by the numbers.
The well-established spot to score barbecue and sandwiches, which opened at 1703 S. 11th St. in January 2018, increased its new review count by 8.4% over the past month, an outlier when compared to the median new review count of 1.8% for the Yelp category "Sandwiches."
Mike's BBQ offers fare like smoked brisket, pulled pork sandwiches and house-made sausage.
Mike's BBQ is open from noon–6 p.m. on Wednesday-Sunday. (It's closed on Monday and Tuesday.)
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.
