OR Methodology: Classifying Cuisine Type for Restaurants

To categorize the restaurants by cuisine type, the websites were analyzed for specific cuisines mentioned in their “About Us” sections or on the restaurant’s homepage, if it was unclear what cuisine type it belonged to, the menus were analyzed to see if there were similarities between the Unknown type restaurant and a restaurant that had already been classified by the method explained above. For example, if a Restaurant is classified as “Italian” by the first method, and the menu mainly consists of pizza and pasta then an unclassified restaurant that was not clearly stated as “Italian” but served mainly pizza and pasta was then classified as “Italian”. And if the cuisine type could still not be accurately identified then it was classified as American, because the food is being cooked and served in the United States (America) and is therefore by purest definition counts as “American” food.