Restaurantology categories comprise over 250 tags that define what a restaurant can be known for. These tags help users quickly understand and filter Concepts and Companies based on their primary food and beverage identity.

Category groupings

Categories fall into four groupings:

• Type of establishment: bar, café, steakhouse, buffet
• Style of food preparation: gluten-free, vegan, kosher
• Cuisine: American (new), Tex-Mex, Japanese, Italian
• Food offered: Burgers, pretzels, coffee, ice cream

Top Category

While Concepts and Companies may have multiple Categories, Restaurantology identifies a Top Category based on unit-level aggregation, frequency, and relevance. This single category reflects what the Concept or Company is most known for and is used as a primary filter in Restaurantology’s Chrome extension, Salesforce app, and data exports.

[!NOTE]
Top Category helps sales and marketing teams prioritize outreach and segmentation by focusing on the primary cuisine or food type associated with each Concept or Company.

How categories are assigned

• Categories are assigned at the unit level.
• Unit-level categories are aggregated and prioritized by frequency.
• An algorithm assigns the most representative Category as the Top Category for each Concept or Company profile.

Menu Offerings (Spring 2025 release)

In Spring 2025, Restaurantology introduced Menu Offerings, a distinct layer of data that tracks menu-level and ingredient-level signals.

Key difference:

• Top Category identifies what a Concept or Company is most known for across its unit portfolio.
• Menu Offerings identify menu items or ingredients offered, regardless of whether they define the Concept’s primary identity.

For example, a casual dining chain may be known primarily for pizza (Top Category) but also offer wings, salads, and burgers (Menu Offerings). Menu Offerings provide a more detailed view of menu breadth and cross-sell opportunities.

[!INFO]
Menu Offerings data complements—but does not replace—Top Category. Together, they provide both high-level identity and detailed menu insights.

Example profile

A Restaurantology profile with a ranked Known for section:

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