How New York City Eats

This project examines how restaurants, bars, and cafes reflect broader characteristics of New York City. The project understands these establishments as important place-making sites where social rituals, personal tastes, community identity, and collective nostalgia are expressed. As a result, they reflect broader social, political, and economic contexts. The following maps visualize the density of restaurants throughout the city, the most prevalent types of food items, cuisines, and establishment types in each of the city's neighborhoods, and finally begin to examine the shifting landscape of restaurant openings and closures over time. Through this research, I seek to explore how communities may be represented by their surrounding food establishments and how this may be shifting as various cuisines enter the fold of American dining.

The bulk of the data used in this research were collected via the  Yelp Fusion API . The first three maps utilize data about currently operating businesses in the city. This was collected using the API’s search endpoint to retrieve all establishments categorized as “restaurants'' and “nightlife.” Due to the crowdsourced element of Yelp data, redundancies may exist in terms of duplicate business records. Map 4 utilizes data on closed businesses retrieved using the API’s match and details endpoints, as well as data scraped from news outlets Eater.com and Gayot.com. Data is still being collected for Map 4.

A complete methodology for the project, as well as collected data, can be viewed on Github.com 

Once the initial search of all businesses throughout the city was complete work was done to organize classifications in a meaningful way for visualization and analysis. Out of the 27,783 total businesses identified, there were 204 unique categories being utilized to describe them. It was found that these categories existed as four different types: 1) by the ethnicity of cuisine served (Italian, Japanese, Russian, etc.); 2) by food type ( pizza, bagels, noodles, etc.); 3) by establishment type (cocktail bars, food trucks, cafes, etc.), and 4) by diet (Kosher, Halal, gluten-free, vegetarian/vegan, etc. ). When visualizing restaurant characteristics, each category instance per business record was treated independently. For instance, if a single restaurant was classified both as “Japanese” and “Korean” this count is attributed to both groups. One categorization does not eclipse the other.

The following maps visualize the overall distribution of food establishments throughout the city, as well as by how the above characteristics vary by neighborhood.

According to Yelp listings, there are currently 27,783 operating businesses in the city categorized as “restaurants” and/or “nightlife”. Manhattan accounts for 38% of all restaurants, bars, and cafes with a total of 10,455, followed by Brooklyn with 8,496; Queens with 5,921; the Bronx with 2,025; and Staten Island with 886 businesses. 

Some of the most densely concentrated areas of restaurants in the city have as many as 100 businesses located within a ¼ mi, squared (roughly the size of four city blocks). In Manhattan, This includes areas in the East Village, Lower East Side and Greenwich Village. Outside of Manhattan, Flushing, Queens boasts the most-densely populated area of food businesses. In the blocks stretching between 38th Avenue and 41st Avenue along Main Street, there are a staggering 157 businesses.  For comparison, the Bronx’s most densely populated area of food and drinking establishments  is centered on Arthur Avenue, yet only has a maximum density of 38 listings per ¼ mile, squared. 

Visualizing the overall density of food and drinking establishments  throughout the city indicates where the city’s hot spots for eating exist. Restaurants tend to be clustered in commercial districts along main streets. In Brooklyn, prominent areas can be seen in neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, Bushwick, Downtown Brooklyn, and Park Slope, with emerging areas in Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Sunset Park, and Bay Ridge. In Queens, prominent neighborhoods include Astoria, Sunnyside, Jackson Heights, and Flushing.

The international scope and ethnic diversity of New York City’s food scene is one that residents often speak of with great pride. In many neighborhoods, one can eat food from around the world without leaving the radius of a couple blocks. In this dataset alone, 93 ethnicities are represented by these businesses. Considering this breadth, how does the number of ethnically-identifiable restaurants in each neighborhood reflect or contradict identities of the neighborhood's communities? 

The five most common cuisines across the city are Chinese food, Mexican food, Italian food, American food, and New American food. If American and New American are combined into one group, American food takes the lead. However, when visualizing what cuisines are most common in each neighborhood the city’s food scene is strikingly un-American. American and New American food only account for the top cuisines in 16 neighborhoods. What does the ethnic culinary landscape of America’s largest city say, then, about the current state of American dining? 

Sociologist and food scholar Krishnendu Ray has written about what he calls a pattern of ethnic procession in American restaurants in which particular cuisines become embedded (or sometimes ‘othered’) in the American palate. He attributes this, first, to the shifting immigrant labor force in the foodservice industry– workers have gone from being primarily German and Irish immigrants at the turn of the 20th century, to Italians and eastern Europeans, and most-recently to Asian and Latinx immigrants; and second, to a developing “global hierarchy of taste” in which particular cuisines are elevated and given prestige over others, which can likely be related to a country’s global economic and cultural power at a given time. In the earliest days of American fine dining, the gold standard was continental European food, then French cuisine became canon, which gave way to Italian-American cuisine as Italians slowly lost their status as ethnic-other. Today, elements of Asian and Latin American cuisines are finding their way into the amalgamation that is New American cuisine (Ray, 2007; Ray, 2014). 

Is it possible to see these patterns at play when studying the ethnic distribution of New York City’s restaurants? 

Across the board, Chinese restaurants account for the top ethnic cuisine in 57 neighborhoods, followed by Mexican in 34 neighborhoods, Italian in 33 and Caribbean in 23. The prevalence of Chinese food in New York City is not surprising given its ubiquity across the country. Scholars such as Ran Mei have studied how the Chinese American restaurant boom in the 20th century was shaped in the context of immigration, discrimination, diasporic identity, and economic survival. In relation to Ray’s ethnic procession theory, Chinese restaurateurs had to convince the American public of the desirability of their foods through constant self-reinvention and adaptation (Rei, 2022, p. 16). This is not unlike what Italians once experienced. However, Italian food has successfully transcended into the highest echelons of American fine dining and simultaneously became an proud ethnic identifier of Italian-Americans in the Northeast. It seems as though other dominant cuisines are still vying for the same recognition. When seeing the number of Mexican restaurants throughout the city, one has to wonder if Mexican restaurateurs are undergoing a similar reconciliation that early Chinese restaurateurs experienced in the 20th century. 

Overall, the most common restaurants by ethnicity seem to be in line with neighborhoods known to have associations with specific ethnicities and food communities. For instance, we can see Italian food in Manhattan’s Little Italy; Indian food in Murray Hill and Kips Bay, the area colloquially known as ‘Curry Hill’; Greek food dominates in Steinway; Caribbean food in Flatbush, also known as Little Caribbean; and Russian food in Brighton Beach. 

I am particularly interested in neighborhoods where the top cuisine differs from its established ethnic communities. For instance, Japanese restaurants are now counted as the most common in Greenpoint, which is a traditionally Polish enclave seeing extreme rates of gentrification. Polish restaurants are now fifth in line behind Mexican, New American, and Italian. In line with Ray's theory about the global hierarchy of taste, the influx of Japanese restaurants throughout the city in general is likely “related to the rise of Japan as a major economic and cultural power, which has made its food an exotic ‘foreign’ commodity, a designer commodity if you will, somewhat akin to the role once played by French food in the American imagination.” (Ray, 2007, p. 103). Does this influx of Japanese food in Greenpoint reflect the area’s current status as a luxury neighborhood? Do the ethnic demographics of the neighborhood reflect these changes in prominent cuisines?

Click to interact with the visualization. Click on the icon in the top right corner for a larger view.

Looking at the distribution of ethnicities by geographic area and considering Ray’s theory may also explain why some cuisines see more nuanced classification than others. For instance, why do establishments serving food from the Caribbean, Middle East, and Africa more often use generic labels to describe themselves (ie. “African” instead of “Senegalese”)? Not to mention, there are far fewer Middle Eastern and African restaurants in the city than other geographic cuisines. Do these numbers really represent the availability of these cuisines? It is possible that these cuisines exist in the city beyond this numbers and a stage has just not yet been set in the American palate for categorizing and advertising their restaurants as such. It is also possible that, unlike Japan who’s cultural capital has risen in the global taste hierarchy, these gaps are likely related to American perceptions and assumptions held about these cultures. More research should be done to examine this. 

Finally, it is important to note that the counts in this map should not be taken at face-value. More likely than not, the diversity of the city’s gastronomic offerings is likely far greater and a lot more fuzzy than what this map portrays. Restaurateurs are in a state of constant negotiations between representing their personal ethnic identities and catering to local tastes, the market, and the cultural capital of a given cuisine at that point in time. Not to mention, food, like all products of culture, resists clean classification. In some instances, a category may undervalue the contributions and presence of particular communities. For instance, in Central Harlem South, American food is noted as the top cuisine. However, this undervalues the presence of Black-centric cuisines, including Soul Food, Cajun, Creole and Caribbean food, that shape the culinary landscape of the neighborhood.

Further relationships between the type of food available in a neighborhood and its characteristics can be seen when visualizing the most common types of establishments. The following map excludes restaurants simply because they would have been the top value for every single neighborhood in the city. It is important to note that this map was created based on a condensed classification of Yelp categories. Any count of a business categorized as a “restaurant” was removed, including ethnicity categories. In the process, some nuance was likely lost. For instance, an establishment labeled simply as ‘Italian’ could have likely been a deli, a pizza shop, a cafe, or all of the above. Exclusion of restaurants naturally leads to a grouping of restaurants heavy on alcohol bars/nightlife but also leaves room to see where fast-casual and takeout is more common in the city.

Regardless of the limitations of the visualization, patterns can be seen emerging in the city. Throughout almost all of Manhattan, Western Queens, and North/Eastern Brooklyn, the most common type of establishments after restaurants are bars including lounges, cocktail bars, and wine bars. Particularly striking is the prominence of fast food businesses in what are likely lower-income and predominantly Black/Hispanic neighborhoods. However, it’s important to note that the prevalence of fast food restaurants is equally as strong in other neighborhoods. It just happens that there are more bars in those areas. More research would need to be performed on the correlation of fast food restaurants and income/racial demographics in the city.

Businesses may also be classified on Yelp based on the food products they sell. Notably, the top dishes tend to be generic, Western-centric and fast-casual forward. The prominence of salad and sandwiches likely comes from the city’s beloved delis, bodegas and corner stores. One can see ‘Noodles’ emerging as a top food item in areas with high numbers of Asian restaurants including Flushing, Jackson Heights, and Sunset Park.

Pizza ranks high. It is the number one food item in 75 neighborhoods, and with a total of 2,512 businesses categorized as offering it. Would you expect anything less from New York?

As seen through these maps, it is clear that the city both shapes and is shaped by its restaurants. Considering that the city is constantly changing, what if we could imagine the way the food landscape in our neighborhoods looked 10 years ago? 20 years ago? Or even 50 years ago?

As gentrification sweeps through the city, decades-old institutions have vanished and new businesses have taken their place. On top of this, the COVID pandemic had a devastating impact on the number of restaurants forced to close in 2020. When the city is in a constant state of redevelopment, how can we memorialize the places that shape our communities but have since disappeared? How might these business closures and openings reflect broader demographic trends throughout the city?  

The last map presented below functions as a prototype for developing a tool that could eventually enable community members, food scholars, and restaurateurs to simultaneously explore past and presently food businesses throughout the city. In addition to Yelp business listings, the map also includes links to articles and reviews collected from two restaurant news outlets (Eater.com and Gayot.com) that provide additional narrative context to the opening and closing of many of these businesses. In many cases, the news articles begin to paint a picture of the transition of restaurants and often speak to a cutthroat and ever-shifting industry.

Click on a green lot to browse business records according to past and present Yelp listings.

Yellow dots provide links to news articles and reviews featuring nearby restaurants.

Navigate among listings by clicking the arrows in the pop-up window (see figure).

Due to API  limitations, time-constraints and the scale of the city’s restaurant information, data collection is incremental and historic business data is still being collected. As of now, Yelp listings for closed businesses are available for most of north and central Brooklyn. Eventually, more news articles will be incorporated, as well as stories from the community, collected via survey. Work to standardize a uniform data structure for cataloging restaurant characteristics is also underway, which will more fully enable consistent analysis across data sources, time, and place. 

Ultimately, by studying restaurants, bars, and cafes as place-making sites, where social rituals, personal tastes, community identity, and collective nostalgia are expressed, it is my hope that we also can understand how food often functions as a reflecting glass for the broader world around us. It allows us to find a home in what may be a new, foreign city, learn about the cultures of others, and revel in the most primal joy of eating delicious meals together.