Curious where Seattle'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 analyze which restaurants have been getting a notable uptick in attention this month.
To find out who made the list, we first looked at Seattle 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 worth exploring, right now.
Haymaker
Whether or not you've been hearing buzz about West Seattle's Haymaker, the cocktail bar and New American spot is a hot topic according to Yelp review data.
While businesses categorized as "American (New)" on Yelp saw a median 1.1% increase in new reviews over the past month, Haymaker bagged a 56% increase in new reviews within that time frame, maintaining a superior four-star rating. It significantly outperformed the previous month by gaining 1.6 times more reviews than expected based on its past performance.
Open at 4706 California Ave. SW (between South Erskine Way and Alaska Street) since August 2019, Haymaker offers housemade pasta, as well as seafood dishes like black cod and King salmon.
Life On Mars
Capitol Hill's Life On Mars is also making waves. Open since June 2019, at 722 E. Pike St. (between Harvard and Boylston avenues), the bar, library and traditional American spot has seen a 22.9% bump in new reviews over the last month, compared to a median review increase of 1.2% for all businesses tagged "American (Traditional)" on Yelp.
On the menu, look for the macaroni and cheese with panko and coconut bacon, the chicken-fried artichokes or the plant-based burger on a brioche bun. Over the past month, it's maintained a mixed 3.5-star rating among Yelpers.
Life On Mars is open from 4 p.m.–2 a.m. daily.
Dough Zone Dumpling House
Finally, Central Business District's Dough Zone Dumpling House is the city's buzziest noodle spot by the numbers.
The Shanghainese spot, which offers dim sum and noodles and opened at 815 Pine St. on July 2019, increased its new review count by 23.4% over the past month, an outlier when compared to the median new review count of 1.4% for the Yelp category "Noodles."
Dough Zone Dumpling House offers noodles with minced pork, beef stew noodles and more. Also on offer are shrimp dumplings, pork wontons and sweet and sour cucumber.
Dough Zone Dumpling House is open from 11 a.m.–10 p.m. daily.
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.
