Unveiling the Secrets of Boston Restaurants: A Feature Importance Analysis

Boston, Massachusetts — a city with a rich history, outstanding universities, successful sports teams, and mouth-watering food! When it comes to dining in this city, there’s no shortage of amazing options. However, not all restaurants are created equal. If you’re like most people, you’ll turn to Yelp for recommendations. Yelp is a popular review website containing valuable data that influences dining decisions. When it comes to making choices, we are curious about what others have to say. The more consensus there is, the more likely we are to pay attention. It’s no surprise that the food industry closely monitors customer feedback. So then, the question is: What factors make some Boston restaurants stand out in terms of their ratings and reviews on Yelp? <h2>Yelp Fusion</h2>   Source: <a href="https://www.yelp.com/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.yelp.com/</a> For this project, I utilized Yelp’s Fusion API, which “allows you to get the best local content and user reviews from millions of businesses around the world. You have the ability to search for businesses by keyword, category, location, price level, and phone number. Get rich business data, such as name, address, phone number, photos, Yelp rating, price levels, and hours of operation.”[Source: <a href="https://docs.developer.yelp.com/docs/getting-started" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Yelp Fusion API Documentation</a>] However, there are some important restrictions: <ul> <li>Daily Limit: I was allowed to make up to 500 API calls per day.</li> <li>Data Lifespan: I couldn’t store the data for more than 24 hours.</li> <li>Data Sharing: I could only share aggregated data, not individual business details.</li> <li>Noncommercial Use: I couldn’t use this data for commercial purposes.</li> <li>Search Limitations: When searching for businesses, the API returns up to 50 at a time and doesn’t guarantee exact matches. However, by adjusting the offset, I accessed up to 1,000 businesses per zip code.</li> </ul> <a href="https://medium.com/@nfogg/unveiling-the-secrets-of-boston-restaurants-a-feature-importance-analysis-b6d6141ef490">Read More</a>