Wanted: Service Restaurants Database Wanted

[mojoco]

I'm looking for a top quality database of UK restaurants.

Must be a very good quality database, as complete and upto date as possible.

Have wasted over a grand on crap, willing to pay top dollar for the best.

Have sampled localdatacompany and bought a couple from other general database providers, but need something better.

Any pointers greatly appreciated.

 

[mrh]

I'm looking for a top quality database of UK restaurants.

Must be a very good quality database, as complete and upto date as possible.

Have wasted over a grand on crap, willing to pay top dollar for the best.

Have sampled localdatacompany and bought a couple from other general database providers, but need something better.

Any pointers greatly appreciated.

I have a database of approx 36,00 takeaways and approx 6000 resturants, its 2 years old. Open to offers

 

[DaveP]

These guys claim to have over 200,000 UK restaurants (not used them personally).

http://www.factual.com/products/restaurants

 

[Edwin]

http://www.localdatacompany.com/publishing license data about all manner of UK businesses.

 

[mojoco]

@ DaveP Thanks, afaik there are around 25,000 UK restaurants. Not sure where factual get 200,000.

@Edwin. Thanks, I have spoken to Localdatacompany previously. They claim to physically revisit areas every six months, implying that the info should be no more than 6 months out of date. So that I could check the validity of their data I requested they provide samples of two small geographic areas that I am familiar with. The data was nowhere near current nor accurate enough for what I require. At least 2-3 years out of date in some cases.

 

[diablo]

Why not use open data from data.gov.uk?

http://ratings.food.gov.uk/open-data/en-GB

Use the api for all restaurants in the UK. all should have a food hygeine rating, meaning that all companies should be in this database?

The xml provides:

• latitude
• longitude
• postcode
• address
• business name
• business type
• hygiene rating
• rating date

* donations gratefully received. =)

Smart thinking!

 

[mojoco]

Why not use open data from data.gov.uk?

http://ratings.food.gov.uk/open-data/en-GB

Use the api for all restaurants in the UK. all should have a food hygeine rating, meaning that all companies should be in this database?

The xml provides:

• latitude
• longitude
• postcode
• address
• business name
• business type
• hygiene rating
• rating date

* donations gratefully received. =)

Thanks for the suggestion, I'd be more than happy to make a donation if that was suitable.

This data relates to premises with a food hygiene rating ...

"Businesses include restaurants, pubs, cafés, takeaways, hotels and other places consumers eat, as well as supermarkets and other food shops."

Is it possible to separate the data for restaurants only ?

 

[mojoco]

One of the nodes in the xml is:

<BusinessType>Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen</BusinessType>

so, an example of pseudo code:

if(BusinessType === 'Restaurant/Cafe/Canteen')
{
  // do something
}

so yes, it is that easy =)

Thanks, will take a closer look.

PM on its way.

 

[DaveP]

What format do you want the database in?

 

[philiporchard]

Why not use open data from data.gov.uk?

http://ratings.food.gov.uk/open-data/en-GB

Use the api for all restaurants in the UK. all should have a food hygeine rating, meaning that all companies should be in this database?

The xml provides:

• latitude
• longitude
• postcode
• address
• business name
• business type
• hygiene rating
• rating date

* donations gratefully received. =)

Nice one!
That's pretty useful data!

 

[retired_member34]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'd be more than happy to make a donation if that was suitable.

This data relates to premises with a food hygiene rating ...

"Businesses include restaurants, pubs, cafés, takeaways, hotels and other places consumers eat, as well as supermarkets and other food shops."

Is it possible to separate the data for restaurants only ?

I scraped the hygiene ratings for a geo site, and displayed it against localdatacompany listings. It is a nice feature, but you will come up against a few problems long term:

1. Matching addresses. The local councils are rather sloppy when it comes to naming businesses and addresses, very often there are quite a number that would need to be manually matched.
2. Changing business name. You will be amazed at the number of restaurants that achieve a very poor rating that suddenly start trading under a new name (will not apply if you are only looking at quality restaurants I guess).

I was also going to add that they keep changing the site, and hence you need to update the scraper, but I see they are now offering the data via an api - damn good news! Might have another go - thanks Seemly.