Yelp Unleashes Dubious List of America's Most Popular Restaurants

Another day, another strange list: Controversial restaurant review site Yelp published its Top 100 Places to Eat in the U.S. for 2015 list today, and only a handful of recognizable names made the cut. According to its blog, Yelp's data science team looked at which places "were the most popular and well reviewed over the course of 2014" in order to compile the collection. The goal was for older and newer reviews to have equal weight on the list.

Over 20 percent of the restaurants on the list are located in ... California.

Taking the top spot is Copper Top BBQ in Big Pine, Calif. Overall, over 20 percent of the restaurants on the list are located in various parts of California. Surprisingly, restaurants in Hawaii are also incredibly popular: Ono Seafood (5), Shark Pit Maui (6), and Dat Cajun Guy (11) all made it into the top 20. New York City only has two restaurants on the list: Los Tacos No. 1 and food truck Cinnamon Snail. As for more recognizable names, Rose's Luxury in Washington, D.C. came in at 69, Austin's Franklin Barbecue landed at 56, and Philadelphia's Beiler's Bakery is number 46.

Online restaurant reservation platform OpenTable's list of the 10 best restaurants in America for 2014 also featured relatively few well-known restaurants. The top spot was awarded to SeaBlue Restaurant & Wine Bar in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, while big names like San Francisco's Saison only made it among the top 100 restaurants.

Yelp's list of America's Most Popular Restaurants was equally confusing last year.