Worst Eats · about

We built a search engine for bad restaurants. On purpose.

What this is, who’s behind it, and how the hunt works.

Every other food site chases the best. We went the other way. Worst Eats searches for food near you and ranks the candidates Google returns from the bottom up. The jokes are deadpan; the limits of the search should be plain.

Five-star hunting is for cowards.

What it actually does

Worst Eats is a reverse restaurant search. Type a city or share your location, choose a range, and we rank the places Google Places returns from the bottom up. Open “The dirt” to read a public review with its author and source. It’s a sample of search results, so a worse-rated place may exist nearby without appearing here.

Some people use the list as a warning. Some use it as an itinerary. We don’t ask.

Why “worst”?

Our June 2026 sample of 1,850 restaurant listings across 18 US city centers had a median Google rating of 4.4★. About two-thirds sat between 4.0 and 4.6. That makes the bottom of the scale interesting, even when Google doesn’t return much of it. The sample favors places Google chooses to surface; it cannot tell us how every restaurant in America is rated. Read the numbers and limitations in the inflation files.

What counts as food?

We use Google’s place categories: restaurants, cafés, bakeries, bars, takeaways, and meal delivery. Snack bars and fast-food restaurants belong in the hunt too. We exclude listings whose primary category is retail, such as supermarkets, department stores, and convenience stores. That is what keeps a Walmart listing out even if Google also gives it a food-related tag. A separately listed restaurant inside a store can still qualify. Google’s categories are imperfect, so odd matches can slip through.

Why can Maps find places we miss?

Google Places returns a limited selection for each search. We combine nearby and text results, remove duplicates, and keep rated, operating listings inside your range. A coverage pilot adds two targeted snack-bar and fast-food searches to 20% of uncached hunts. Even those extra searches cannot enumerate every place in a dense city. Different categories, search centers, and Google’s own ranking can produce different results on Maps.

By default we also hide recognized chains and require at least ten reviews. Turn off the franchise filter or lower “Proof” to see more of the candidates already returned. A missing result might be filtered out, or might never have reached us. Send us a Maps link and your search area if you spot a gap.

Google stars or Street value?

Google mode shows Google’s rating and limits contenders to 4.0★ or below. Street mode, the default, ranks the full returned sample and adds our percentile-based score: how a rating compares with the local pool, or the June 2026 research pool when the local sample is small. Street value is our arithmetic, not a second set of customer reviews. Google’s original number stays visible. “Reliably awful” also considers review count so one angry review has less influence.

What is “The dirt”?

Opening a review file requests up to five reviews selected by Google. We quote the lowest-rated review in that returned set only when it has three stars or fewer. Keyword tags are commentary on those words, not verified health or safety findings. Google may return only positive reviews even for a low-rated place; in that case we say so and link to Maps. We cannot request every review or sort the API response by lowest rating.

The honest part

The jokes are ours. Google ratings and public review quotes retain their attribution; Street value and keyword tags are labeled commentary. Live lookups may use a shared cache for up to 30 days. Published research contains aggregates, not per-restaurant databases. The research is a June 2026 snapshot, not a monthly series or a current census. We don’t infer that a restaurant is unsafe from its stars. For corrections, use our contact page.

Who’s behind it

Worst Eats is an independent project, built and maintained by Veer (digitalveer). No venture money, no growth team, no app to install. Just one developer and a deep suspicion of five-star averages. Find me on GitHub or use the contact page for questions and corrections.

Keep the hunt going

Optional tips on Ko-fi support my work by helping cover Google Places API requests. The site stays free. Tips don’t buy access, placement, reviews, or a different ranking.

Want to help someone get a good meal? Support the World Food Programme directly. That link goes to WFP’s website. Worst Eats does not collect those contributions, and they are separate from tips for this project.

What we don’t do

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