I've gotten a couple of requests this past week that relate to the most difficult part of building the intrepid restaurant guide that is FoodFinder.net. Both of these, while very different from each other, tie into the same theme--gathering restaurant data.
The first one inquired about adding international restaurants. Wow...this would be super cool. I really look forward to expanding overseas. Unfortunately, I'm years, not months away. Reason one--I have limited database space (about half a gig). Even my US coverage is a work in progress. I've collected restaurants in about 20 major markets, and have filled out areas around the two places where I've lived (southern New England and Southern California). These 2 regions also get the most attention in terms of new restaurants and updates.
The second request was for an update to the menu for Martha's Exchange & Brewery. Normally, this would be a simple matter, but their menu is not available electronically (normally, I would have told the manager to send me an electronic copy of the data, but since I used to frequent their on the weekends, I figured I'd knock it out and brush up on my typing skills at the same time). In the future, I won't make a habit of doing this.
Also, I'd like to expand the amount of data available for an individual restaurant. I think Yelp does a great job providing detailed meta information about their listings. I plan to add this by opening up control over some of the restaurant data to the community and the owners or managers. So much to do, and so little time.
