Top 5 Least-Google-Friendly L.A. Restaurants

By Rachael Narins Wed., Feb. 16 2011 at 10:00 AM

When naming an indie rock band, going with Free Beer seems like a clever marketing move. It certainly has built in marquee appeal and will for sure bring in the crowds. No telling how they'll react when there isn't any beer though. But when it comes to a restaurant, something simple and to the point can actually work against you. Smart phones can't figure out what your business is up to, GPS map searches get confused, and the SEO factor is pretty low.

So for all you burgeoning restaurateurs and frustrated tech users, here is our list of the 5 least-Google-friendly (non Googleable?) restaurants in L.A. Take note and then take notes, if you ever want to find them, that is. We suddenly miss the good old-fashioned Yellow Pages.

5. LA Market: On the lookout for this Hell's-Kitchen-winner-helmed hotel lobby restaurant? You may be able to find a grocery store; the nearby, and well established lunch spot named Market or a fashion warehouse more easily. Considering the pedigree, they might as well have called it "Reality Show Restaurant, Downtown, Southern, For Tourists." Longer, and yet oddly more succinct. 900 West Olympic Boulevard, Los Angeles; (213) 765-8600.

4. 24/7: Trying to find this Standard Hotel diner online mostly yields links to an HBO mini-series about boxing. Which doesn't help our appetites. Other fun results include: a traffic school, a complete list of all the competing 24-hour restaurants in LA and a media company specializing in - among other things - web optimization. That just makes us laugh. 550 South Flower Street, Los Angeles; (213) 439-3030.

3. Bar Kitchen: We have yet to figure out the perfect combination of words to locate this joint, brought to you by the extra awesome Alex Day and David Kaplan of Death and Co. Confusing the matter, there are actually three similarly named Bar Kitchen's in town. (Insert head shaking.) Well, should you be able to find them, you can feel confident ordering anything off the cocktail menu and you have to try the bacon wrapped dates. Mmm... 819 S. Flower Street, Lo Angeles; (213) 623-9904.

2. Local: This one actually managed to crash our phone's GPS on three separate occasions. It didn't care what we said, it wasn't having any of it. All it wanted was to give us a weather report. (75 degrees and sunny.) We really hope this doesn't happen to anyone else, since we sincerely love them and their mission... and the Vegetarian Reuben is amongst our favorite sandwiches in town. 2943 West Sunset Blvd., Silverlake; (323) 662-4740.

1. Food: Sure, it's a super-fantastic little breakfast and lunch place on Pico, but if you don't know where it is, you might get stuck trying to think of any additional words that your search engine can glom on to. We were offered links to the Food Network, King Taco (?) and Food 4 Less long before this neighborhood favorite appeared. Maybe try Food restaurant? Food Restaurant West LA? Sigh. 10571 W Pico Blvd, Los Angeles; (310) 441-7770.

We can't wait to see how this all goes with Ink when it opens. We're already practicing clandestinely typing while driving: Voltajio Voltaglio Voltaggio...

Curious about the runners up? Public Kitchen, 23, Kitchen 24, Craft, Forage, Good, Cut and the recently closed Eat.

Tags:

24/7, Bar Kitchen, Food, Google, LA Market, Local, Rachael Narins

We Recommend

Sorry

apparently quotes, you know "quotes", are completely unfamiliar to you.... how exactly is that the restaurant owner's fault? "LA Market" returns LA market's website in the top 5, same with ' "24/7" LA ' . learn to search, don't blame others.

F U "Sorry"

What a stupid comment. If I am driving around and am not sure of the exact name of a place I won't find it. If I use my phone to search nearby these places dont show up. So don'' think I'm some sort of tool who doesn't understand quotes. I'm a dude who relies on technology and thinks these places FAIL.

Elina Shatkin

I haven't used the Yellow Pages in years. Aside from some post-Apocalyptic landscape in which most of the electric grid is wiped out but my neighborhood Thai restaurant still delivers, I can't imagine why I ever would. When I type some approximation of a restaurant's name into a search engine, I'd like that venue to come up at the top.

S. Britchky

[Comments appear to be going through again, so let me make one last attempt.]

In the past, I’ve certainly had the problem of finding restaurants with generic names, but none of these five candidates is a real challenge. Maybe Google, Inc. is putting some of their billions into the search engine. Just type the restaurant name (between quotation marks if necessary), followed by the words

"los angeles" restaurant

For candidates 2-5, the first link offered gave a street address that you can feed your hungry GPS and a phone number to call for directions. Food was slightly harder, but adding the street name nailed it also:

food "los angeles" restaurant pico

(Don't know the street? anywho.com found Food with just the city and business name.) Lunch -- suggested by another reader -- is even easier than Food. (If that’s a pun, I didn’t mean it.) The first link from Google on:

lunch "culver city" restaurant

has the restaurant address and phone number.

N.B. This approach might not work as well for some vanilla-named restaurants in their first few weeks of life -- until Google sees a little action on the place and AnyWho gets the phone number into their database.

S. Britchky

[Comments appear to be going through again, so let me make one last attempt.]

"los angeles" restaurant

food "los angeles" restaurant pico

lunch "culver city" restaurant

has the restaurant address and phone number.

gastronomer

Animal.

Yahoo1

They still print the yellow pages?

S. Britchky

For some reason, this didn't go through last night. Let's try again:

With google.com, none of these five candidates is a real challenge. Just type the restaurant name (between quotation marks if necessary), followed by the words

"los angeles" restaurant

food "los angeles" restaurant pico

(Don't know the street? anywho.com found Food with just the city and business name.) Surprisingly, Lunch -- suggested by another reader -- is easier than Food. The first link from a Google search on:

lunch "culver city" restaurant

has the restaurant address and phone number.

N.B. This approach might not work as well for some vanilla-named restaurants in their first few weeks of life -- until Google sees a little action on the place and anywho.com gets the phone number into its database.

Ken

Had no trouble finding "Food" in the print Yellow Pages. Maybe the Internet isn't the solution of all of mankind's needs....

S. Britchky

With google.com, none of these five candidates is a real challenge. Just type the restaurant name (between quotation marks if necessary), followed by the words

"los angeles" restaurant

food "los angeles" restaurant pico

(Don't know the street? anywho.com found Food with just the city and business name.) Surprisingly, Lunch -- suggested by another reader -- is easier than Food. The first link from a Google search on:

lunch "culver city" restaurant

has the restaurant address and phone number.

michellewoo

Down in Westminster, there are all the numbered Vietnamese restaurants. #1, #54, #79. Sheez.

Dave Lieberman

And let's not forget the completely un-Googleable "A Market and Restaurant" in Newport Beach.

S. Britchky

It's the first hit, Dave, when you use the correct name: "A Restaurant & Market."

S. Britchky

It's still on the first page of hits from Google when you use "A Restaurant and Market."

Rachael

But when driving around looking for a place to eat, is Dave (Hi Dave!) going to know to use an ampersand? No.

foodgps

That's a pretty poor name. How's the food?

Rachael

Really? LOL! Good one...

Gustavo Turner

"Street" FTW

Guest.

You're clearly missing Culver City's unfortunately named Lunch.

Rachael

Never heard of it...too bad, since...yea...that's a contender!

Kristalbailey

Grub should be mentioned as well! Claim they have the best Tuna Melt in town.

robtak

Thank you! All business owners should take note of this in the post Yellow Page era. The numbers are the worst. Just because it's your address, doesn't mean it's a good name for your business. 4100 Bar, I'm looking at you. And perhaps this is why "15" in Echo Park is no more.