Want the scoop on Los Angeles's most happening local spots?
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 seeing especially high review volumes this month.
To find out who made the list, we first looked at Los Angeles 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 have the momentum heading into springtime.
HRB: The Hand Roll Bar Experience
Century City's HRB: The Hand Roll Bar Experience is making waves. Open since January 2020 at 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., the sushi bar and Japanese spot is relatively new to Yelp, but has seen a surge of new reviews, while all businesses tagged "Sushi Bars" on Yelp saw an increase of 1.1% for new reviews in the past month.
HRB: The Hand Roll Bar Experience offers four, five, six and seven hand roll sets, with options such as bay scallop, blue crab and spicy tuna. Diners can also choose the omakase option. View the menu here. Over the past month, it's maintained a mixed 3.5-star rating among Yelpers.
HRB: The Hand Roll Bar Experience is open from 11 a.m.–10 p.m. daily.
sweetgreen
Studio City's sweetgreen, a member of the famous chain, is the city's buzziest salad spot by the numbers.
The vegetarian spot, which offers salads and more and has been open at 13003 Ventura Blvd. since December 2019, saw a 1.2% increase in new reviews over the last month — matching that of all businesses for the Yelp business category "Salad."
sweetgreen offers "simple, seasonal, healthy salads and grain bowls made in-house from scratch, using whole produce delivered that morning," according to its Yelp page.
It's not the only trending outlier in the salad category: Grá has seen a 90% increase in reviews.
The sweetgreen menu features buffalo chicken bowl, winter squash salad and chicken tostada salad. Check out the rest of the menu.
sweetgreen is open from 10:30 a.m.–10 p.m. daily.
Cafe Med
Westwood's Cafe Med is currently on the upswing in the cafe category on Yelp.
While businesses categorized as "Cafes" on Yelp saw a median 1.7% increase in new reviews over the past month, this cafe increased its new reviews by 8.3% — and kept its rating consistent at three stars. Review counts increased by more than 200% on a month-to-month basis, and the business saw visits more than triple over the same time frame, according to SafeGraph's foot traffic data.
Open for business at 10833 Le Conte Ave. at the UCLA Medical Center since March 2008, Cafe Med serves up bagel sandwiches, sushi and tacos.
Cafe Med is open from 7 a.m.–2 p.m. on weekdays. (It's closed on weekends.) According to SafeGraph, foot traffic is heaviest at 11 a.m., 12 p.m. and 1 p.m., and on Thursdays and Tuesdays, with a slowdown on Mondays.
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.
