As fans of cronuts and cake pops can attest, food trends come and go. So how can you tell which tastes are trending right now?
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 discover which eateries have been getting a noteworthy uptick in attention 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 have the momentum heading into springtime.
Picnic on Third
Open since 2014, this well-established cafe and caterer has seen a major increase in foot traffic recently.
While Picnic on Third stayed on par with the median 1% increase in new reviews for New American spots on Yelp over the past month, maintaining a strong 4.5-star rating, the number of visitors to Picnic on Third more than tripled over the same time frame, according to SafeGraph's foot traffic data.
Curious about this business? We found this in its Yelp history section: "Chefs Natalia Bushyager and Leigh Loper have been cooking together on the line, side-by-side, for years. Picnic on Third is their first joint venture, created with the goal of unleashing their culinary creativity and taking guests along for the ride. Their professional backgrounds include Bay Area institutions such as Chez Panisse, Quince, Foreign Cinema and Camino, but their true desire is to make incredible-tasting food available every day at a reasonable price."
It's not the only trending outlier in the New American category: Toy Soldier has seen an 8.7% increase in reviews.
Located at 493 Third St. (between Stillman and Bryant streets) in SoMa, this "culinary cafe," as the restaurant bills itself, offers a rotating menu of daytime fare inspired by the theme of the day — there's never the same menu twice.
Picnic on Third is open from 7:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. on weekdays. (It's closed on weekends.) According to SafeGraph, people tend to visit Home Coffee Roasters on Thursdays and Mondays, and it attracts a quarter of its total visitors over those two days, with a slowdown on Tuesdays.
Home Coffee Roasters
Whether or not you've been hearing buzz about Chinatown's Home Coffee Roasters, the coffee shop is a hot topic according to Yelp review data.
While businesses categorized as "Coffee & Tea" on Yelp saw a median 1.4% increase in new reviews over the past month, Home Coffee Roasters bagged a 30.3% increase in new reviews within that time frame, maintaining a solid 4.5-star rating.
Open at 455 Grant Ave. (near Pine Street) since last September, this is the third location of Home Coffee Roasters, which debuted in the Outer Sunset in 2015 and has since come to be known for its inventive coffee and tea drinks and quirky latte art. Stop into this Chinatown outpost for a sparkling Americano, a Cookie Monster or red velvet latte, or a Coke-tastic (espresso, cola and ice cream).
Home Coffee Roasters is open from 7 a.m.–5 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m.–5 p.m. on weekends.
Phonobar
Hayes Valley's Phonobar is also making waves. Open since December 2017 at 370 Grove St. (between Franklin and Gough streets), the cocktail bar has seen a 4.3% bump in new reviews over the last month, compared to a median review increase of 1.4% for all businesses tagged "Cocktail Bars" on Yelp. According to SafeGraph foot traffic data, Phonobar saw visits more than triple over the past month.
There's more than one hot spot trending in San Francisco's cocktail bar category: Wildseed has seen a 20.6% increase in reviews.
Phonobar offers more than a dozen different classic and signature cocktails, as well as wine, beer and a menu of bar bites. Over the past month, it's maintained a convincing four-star rating among Yelpers.
Phonobar is open from 5 p.m.–2 a.m. on Wednesday-Saturday. (It's closed on Sunday-Tuesday.) According to SafeGraph, foot traffic is heaviest on Saturdays and Thursdays, and it attracts a quarter of its total visitors over those two days, with a slowdown on Wednesdays.
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.
