Wondering where San Francisco'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 and SafeGraph, a dataset of commercial points of interest and their visitor patterns, to analyze which local businesses have been most discussed this month.
To find out who made the list, we first looked at San Francisco 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 getting plenty of attention, right now.
Gozu
Whether or not you've been hearing buzz about SoMa's Gozu, the Japanese restaurant is a hot topic according to Yelp review data.
While businesses categorized as "Japanese" on Yelp saw a median 1.1% increase in new reviews over the past month, Gozu appeared on Yelp relatively recently. Many new businesses struggle to gain reviews, but it has seen a surge of interest.
"Gozu is a tasting experience developed by chef Marc Zimmerman and partner Benjamin Jorgensen" that's focused on "elevating the wagyu breed while displaying its versatility and nuance through the preparation of the animal in its entirety," according to its Yelp page.
Open at 201 Spear St., Suite 120 (near the corner of Spear and Howard streets), since November, the restaurant features two tasting menus, as well as a beverage program that highlights Japanese and Scotch whiskeys.
Gozu is open from 5–11 p.m. on Tuesday-Saturday. (It's closed on Sunday and Monday.)
Home
The Outer Sunset's Home is also making waves. Open since 2015 at 1222 Noriega St. (between 19th and 20th avenues), the well-established cafe saw visits more than triple over the past month, according to SafeGraph foot traffic data.
There's more than one hot spot trending in San Francisco's coffee and tea category: Blue Bottle Coffee has seen a 4.3% increase in Yelp reviews, compared to a median review increase of 1.4% for all businesses tagged "Coffee & Tea" on Yelp.
Home offers a full array of hot and iced coffee and tea drinks, alongside a slew of snacks, including truffle avocado toast and curry scones. Over the past month, it's maintained a healthy 4.5-star rating among Yelpers.
Home is open from 7 a.m.–5 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m.–5 p.m. on weekends. According to SafeGraph, it's usually busiest at 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., and people visit Home most on Fridays and Sundays. If you’re planning your visit, you may want to try its slower periods on Thursdays.
Guilin Rice Noodles House
Parkside's Guilin Rice Noodles House is the city's buzziest noodle spot by the numbers.
The restaurant, which opened at 901 Taraval St. (at 19th Avenue) in November, is still relatively new to Yelp but has seen a surge of new reviews. Meanwhile, the median new review count for the Yelp category "Noodles" was up 1.1% over the past month.
It's not the only trending outlier in the noodle category: Azalina's has seen a 1.2% increase in reviews.
Guilin Rice Noodles House specializes in cuisine from the Chinese region of Guilin, serving up dishes like green onion pancakes, hot and sour rice noodle soup and marinated beef tripe.
Guilin Rice Noodles House is open from 11 a.m.–9:30 p.m. on Tuesday-Sunday. (It's closed on Monday.)
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.
