Indy's 10 most Instagrammed restaurants
Does making the top 10 mean these are Indy's best restaurants?
If you Instagram photos of Indy food, consider yourself sort-of a restaurant reviewer. One company has compiled a bunch of that local food porn into a list of Indy's most Instagrammed restaurants.
With chef-driven restaurants in the news lately and Indy's reputation as a chain food capital, places that landed the greatest number of 2014 Instagram photos might surprise you. Most restaurants in the top 10 are casual. Just two are major chains.
Four of the 10 are on Mass Ave.
The list was compiled by MyFab5, a restaurant rating website and mobile app launched in 2013.
MyFab5 uses Instagram's Application Programming Interface -- that thing better known as API which lets one piece of software interact with another piece of software -- to track how often diners on Instagram post about particular restaurants. Instagram's API allows MyFab5 to see photos posted by public Instagram users whose accounts are not locked.
"We count the number of Instagram photos that are geo-tagged at restaurants in Indianapolis…We only count up to 25 photos per person at any single location. This means that if a restaurant owner posted 300 photos at their own restaurant then we will only count 25 of them," MyFab5 co-founder and CEO Omeid Seirafi-Pour explained.
The 2014 list of Indy's most Instagrammed restaurants is based 14,734 photos posted from January to November 2014, Seirafi-Pour said.
1. Mass Ave. Bakersfield, 334 Massachusetts Ave., 919 photos posted
2. Bru Burger Bar, 410 Massachusetts Ave., 533 photos posted
3.The Cheesecake Factory, Fashion Mall at Keystone Crossing, 449 photos posted
4. Bluebeard, 653 Virginia Ave., 433 photos posted
5. Scotty's Brewhouse, 1 Virginia Ave., 423 photos posted
6. Fogo de Chao, 117 E. Washington St., 364 photos posted
7. Ralston's DraftHouse, 635 Massachusetts Ave., 326 photos posted
8. Rathskeller Biergarten, 401 E. Michigan St., 306 photos posted
9. Forty Five Degrees, 765 Massachusetts Ave., 305 photos posted
10. Petit Chou Bistro & Champagne Bar, 823 E Westfield Blvd., 293 photos posted
Does making the top 10 mean these are Indy's best restaurants? That's where MyFab5 users step in.
MyFab5 websites and free mobile apps are "built on top of Instagram," Seirafi-Pour said. Users submit restaurant rankings and food photos so that others may see what they think.
Users post places that they like in various categories. For instance, "my top 3 places for #pizza." MyFab5 adds up rankings in each category to help users find places to eat. If you use MyFab5 to search, say, "burgers," you'll see MyFab5 users' top-ranked burger places and how those restaurants rank in other categories, say veggie burgers, waffle fries or milkshakes.
"This means you get a snapshot of what each place is like without having to read a review. If you'd like to read reviews or see photos, then MyFab5 also allows you to do that," Seirafi-Pour explained.
The ranking system prevents fake negative reviews by focusing on sharing places users recommend.
"We chose the name MyFab5 because on our platform people share their favorite restaurants. Our name emphasizes the fact that there is no negative content on our platform and that you can only rank up to 5 places in each food/drink related category."
Of the 130,000 people nationwide who use MyFab5's website, blogs and free mobile apps -- available for iPhone and Android -- 2 percent of the audience is in Indianapolis, Seirafi-Pour said.
Instagram recently announced that it has more than 300 million users.
The MyFab5 app will always be free, Seirafi-Pour said.
"In early 2015, MyFab5 will reveal a couple of revenue generating features that I cannot comment on right now. I can say that the ideas we will be testing do not involve ads," Seirafi-Pour said.
Call Liz Biro at (317) 444-6264. Follow her on Twitter @lizbiro, Instagram @lizbirodish and Facebook. Email her at liz.biro@indystar.com.