Audio By Carbonatix
“Yelp Data” has mined its bevy of user reviews and rankings to reveal the absolute top 100 restaurants in the country that you have to try. Unfortunately, only two Arizona spots made the list, but both are in the Phoenix area. Short Leash‘s food truck locked in the 81st spot on the list, while Postino in Arcadia came in at number 97. While we love Postino for a good charcuterie board and bottle of wine combo deal and Short Leash has the pita bread wrapped dog market on lock, we’re not sure if those two would’ve been our ultimate choice to represent Phoenix, especially since some of the other cities’ culinary representatives have Michelin stars.
See Also: Is Yelp Fair to Restaurants?
…In fact, we know those wouldn’t be the top places we took a friend in from out of town because we made that list already. However, Yelp’s method of combining overall rankings with reviews and number of visits seems more like a recipe for finding places that almost anyone would like (or at least have little objection to), rather than actually finding the top restaurants in the country. After all, Mister James Beard has a thing or two to say differently than that list as well.
In the end, we’re not at all trying to disparage Short Leash or Postino because we’ve had our fair share of peanut buttery Bear dogs, like any good Phoenician should. We just find Yelp’s system of determining “top restaurants” questionable, kind of like saying a video of a puppy playing with a kitten is the best on YouTube because it has the most likes and shares. Everybody loves a puppy playing with a kitten.
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