Anyone who follows Seattle food coverage is well aware of the many dining maps published by sites such as Eater Seattle, a food news site that’s part of a national media group that runs similar websites in 24 cities across the United States. The guides include the Eater Heatmap, a collection of 12 of the “buzziest” new restaurants in Seattle; Eater 38, which Eater calls an “elite group [that] covers the entire city [and] spans a myriad of cuisines”; and the Asian noodle map.
As an avid diner, Lisa Mei Yook Woo regularly uses these online guides to find new places to eat, but she felt that many great restaurants—especially those owned by people of color—tend to get left out. “I’m on Yelp all the time and I use the Eater Heatmap, but they just don’t have the restaurants that I love. I wanted to strip away the traditional, mainstream idea of what a foodie is,” she says…
