Get these trending Seattle restaurants on your radar now

Get these trending Seattle restaurants on your radar nowPhoto: Rupee Bar/Yelp
Hoodline
Published on February 03, 2020

Curious where Seattle'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 uncover which local businesses have been in the spotlight 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 sizzling hot, right now.

Zaika

Photo: Ting A./Yelp

Open since December, this bar and Indian spot is trending compared to other businesses categorized as "Bars" on Yelp.

Citywide, bars saw a median 1.3% increase in new reviews over the past month. Zaika only recently appeared on Yelp, but while many new businesses struggle to gain reviews, it has seen strong initial popularity.

It's not the only trending outlier in the bar category: Ciudad has seen a 1.4% increase in reviews, and Crown Hill Broiler and Bangrak Market have seen 2 and 6.2% increases, respectively.

Located at 1100 Pike St. (between Boren and Melrose avenues) in Capitol Hill, Zaika offers a variety of sharable plates, including sesami cheese toast, prawn sambal and goat cheese potli, as well as main dishes like bison kheema and butter chicken. A variety of cocktails are also on offer.

Zaika is open from 11:30 a.m.–2:30 p.m. and 5 p.m.–10 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. (It's closed on Tuesday.)

Rupee Bar

photo: jen c./yelp

Whether or not you've been hearing buzz about Ballard's Rupee Bar, the cocktail bar and Sri Lankan and Indian spot is a hot topic according to Yelp review data.

While businesses categorized as "Cocktail Bars" on Yelp saw a median 1.5% increase in new reviews over the past month, Rupee Bar bagged a 34.1% increase in new reviews within that time frame, maintaining a superior 4.5-star rating.

There's more that's trending on Seattle's cocktail bar scene: Kin Len Thai Night Bites has seen a 13.2% increase in reviews.

Open at 6307 24th Ave. NW (between 63rd and 64th streets) since October, Rupee Bar offers such dishes as pork curry ribs with tamarind glaze; tandoor cauliflower with eggplants and currants; and black cod curry. 

Rupee Bar is open from 4 p.m.–10 p.m. on Tuesday-Saturday and 4 p.m.–9 p.m. on Sunday. (It's closed on Monday.)

Taylor Shellfish Farms

Photo: regina w./Yelp

Capitol Hill's Taylor Shellfish Farms is also making waves. Open since 2011 at 1521 Melrose Ave. (between Pike Street and Minor Avenue), the well-established live/raw food spot, which offers seafood and more, has seen a 0.7% bump in new reviews over the last month, compared to a median review increase of 0.8% for all businesses tagged "Seafood" on Yelp. According to SafeGraph foot traffic data, visits to Taylor Shellfish Farms increased by 35% over the past month.

Taylor Shellfish Farms offers fresh raw oysters, cooked Dungeness crab, Mediterranean mussels and more. Over the past month, it's maintained a strong four-star rating among Yelpers.

Taylor Shellfish Farms is open from 11 a.m.–9 p.m. on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday and 11 a.m.–10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. According to SafeGraph, it usually gets busy at 6 p.m., 7 p.m. and 8 p.m., and on Mondays and Saturdays, so go on Fridays if you want to avoid the rush.


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.