User:Tantek.com/venue-category-emojis

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This page is for incrementally documenting emojis for venue categories, specifically for Foursquare venue categories, for use on recommendations lists for quicker, easier understanding and immediate practical use than approaches taken by Foursquare, OpenStreetMaps, or others.

E.g. see gRegor Morrill's excellent https://gregorlove.com/lists/food-and-drink/

Related but different use of emojis to indicate food item attributes at venues:

https://tantek.com/2023/114/t1/venues-reviews-personal-pages

Have gone through my own Foursquare lists of recommendations so far:

✅ Berlin
...

Venue categories emojis

Brainstorming list of emojis for venue categories from my Berlin list from Foursquare:

🛒 supermarket
🥘 kofte
🥣 soup spot
🍲 Vietnamese
🍔 burgers
🥤 juice bar
☕️ coffee shop
🍛 Indian
🌱 vegan and vegetarian restaurant
☕️ cafe
🛒 organic grocery
🛒 health food store
🍲 Korean
🛒 food & beverage
🍣 sushi
🍟 fast food
🍞 bakery
...

Multiple venue categories

Foursquare/Swarm allowed 1-3 categories per venue

a single "primary" venue category (by default, the first category assigned to the venue)
any time a venue category icon was shown, it represented that primary venue category

Perhaps display (up to?) three emoji per venue to indicate a broader range of what kind(s) of venue it is, in order of what they are most known for first

Concern: too many icons on a page may be confusing

Perhaps only display multiple emoji for a venue when that venue name is displayed on its own, or maybe in a small / short list.

Venue category by menu options

Consider: infer venue category (or categories) from the larger set of menu options
e.g. see https://tantek.com/2023/114/t1/venues-reviews-personal-pages emojis for menu item annotations
What food item(s) is a venue most known for? Perhaps display the emoji accordingly

Coffee serving venue taxonomy

Brainstorming a taxonomy for places that serve coffee. Possible terms/phrases to consider (or some subset / combination thereof)

Prior art first, then brainstorming based on those.

Swarm coffee serving categories

Swarm (and Foursquare previously) has several coffee serving related venue categories:

☕️ Café
☕️ Coffee Shop

Typically serving at least drip coffee:

🍳 Breakfast Spot
🥞 Diner

Often serving some kind of (typically drip brewed only) coffee:

🍩 Donut Shop
🇫🇷 French Restaurant
⛽️ Fuel Station

Rarely serving some kind of coffee:

🍟 Fast Food Restaurant

All of these seem the wrong granularity, neither general enough to browse quickly, nor specific enough to be decisively useful.

OSM on cafes and coffee serving

What OSM does for cafes / places serving coffee is a mess and pretty useless IMO:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Coffee — a few bits copy/pasted here per fair use quoting:
- shop=coffee
- amenity=cafe + cuisine=coffee_shop – A café that mainly serves coffee
- amenity=vending_machine + vending=coffee
- drink:coffee=yes – Indicates that a feature serves coffee. Can be combined with such tags as e.g. amenity=pub, amenity=bar

Helps very little (if at all) with searching for or comparing venues to go out to for coffee, e.g. with friends.

coffee venue taxonomy brainstorming

Different kinds of places that serve coffee.

Coffee-centric — places known for their coffee, or the primary reason people go there. Ordered roughly from more minimal/ephemeral to more featured/permanent

☕️ coffee stand — some grocery stores have these like HSM. And lots of these in the Pacific Northwest too, especially drive-throughs. Could be a pop-up. No "inside" to sit. Some may have food offerings.
☕️ coffee truck — like a food truck that serves primarily coffee (SF has one that frequently parks in Alamo Square park). also no "inside" to sit but may have put out a few folding tables/chairs to use near the truck, or be adjacent to a public seating area. likely more food offerings than a coffee stand.
☕️ espresso bar — primarily focused on espresso, maybe a few espresso-drink variants like a cappuccino or cortado, maybe a few fancy espresso drinks. likely small, European-style, with only a bar/counter to stand and drink, maybe facing a window. may also sell beans, possibly a few pastries / other snacks. May have some seating. unlikely any hot food or assembled food.
☕️ coffee shop — casual, could have plain drip coffee only, or could make espresso drinks. often "diner" vibes in the US, and serves some food prepared in a kitchen, short of a maybe full-on diner, yet often associated with grabbing a slice of pie or other baked good to accompany a coffee. Should very much be ok with you only ordering a coffee, because it's right there in the name. May also serve fancy espresso drinks, e.g. SF Eater best coffee shops.
☕️ coffeehouse — primarily serves coffee and similar drinks, likely has fancy espresso drinks, plenty of seating, serves as a meeting place. Often regarded a third place, like you could read a book. Likely to have food, even some prepared/assembled food, heated pastries, or maybe a minimal kitchen. A café focused on good coffee likely counts as a coffeehouse.

Ambigously coffee-centric or coffee-adjacent:

🥪 café — despite some association with coffee, cafes are more often known for casual eats than coffee. They always have some food offerings. They nearly always have coffee, but may not have espresso (drinks). They likely have "order at the counter" service (also called "café-style" service) and may also have table-side service like at Parisian cafés.
- There are many casual eats cafés, e.g. Duboce / Dolores Park Café, which are not especially known for their coffee.
- The Wikipedia Coffee Portal has a link preview image of a giant red neon "Café" sign, and in-article text frequently mentions "coffeehouses and cafés" (which perhaps implies we don't need a separate category for the coffee-centric instances of "café", beyond "coffeehouse" above)
- Swarm sticker for a café, "Foam-o", is a latte with pretty foam art
- Question: does café imply more primarily (like which sense feels stronger)
  - 1: A place to grab a casual bite
  - 2: A place to grab a (fancy?) coffee

Dropped:

☕️ coffee bar — There was a literal "Coffee Bar" in the Mission, San Francisco until 2019, though it fit the definition of "coffeehouse" in practice, maybe a vague subset of coffeehouse.
- Perhaps also better used as an amenity in a larger venue, e.g. a coffee bar inside a Whole Foods, Good Earth, or even The Coffee Bar at Harrods.
- 🥤 Related: "juice bar" which could also be an amenity in a larger venue (e.g. gym, or grocery store). Good Earth has a combination coffee bar and juice bar (you order at the same place)

Coffee-adjacent, that is their primary purpose (or what they're known for) is not coffee but typically some sort of food. Sorted roughly nearest (maybe most "feels like" it could be a cafe) to furthest (but still adjacent). Coffee may be considered a (typical) feature or menu item of each of these.

🍞 bakery — lots of bakeries also serve coffee, and sometimes people just go there for a coffee even if the primary purpose of the venue is to bake/make baked goods and based on them. The Mill in SF and Devil’s Teeth Bakery are examples.
🍩 donut shop — similarly to breakfast spots, they serve coffee to accompany food offerings, and it would be ok (context-dependent?) to just get a coffee
🍽 diner — nearly every diner serves classic black drip "diner coffee", and is typically ok with you ordering just a cup of coffee to drink in a mug. Highly adjacent to a "coffee shop".
🍳 breakfast/brunch spot — these all serve coffee, as an accompaniment to the food, and tend to be sit down. it would be odd/weird to go and only get a coffee.
🥞 pancake house — e.g. IHOP, Wafflehouse, and there used to be a place called "Stacks" in Hayes Valley in SF
🫖 teahouse — primarily focused on serving tea, may also serve coffee and small bites

attributes of coffee serving places

Brainstorming clusters of attributes of places that serve coffee:

see coffee Brainstorming / See Also for different attributes of coffee serving places

Attributes of things or services at coffee serving places

drinking:

espresso machine
- 🥛 espresso drinks mixed with at least some form of milk
  - flat white
  - pretty espresso drinks (e.g. lattes)
  - 🍫 mochas
    - 🌱🍫 vegan mocha
    - 🍫🌶 mexican mocha
🌱plant-based milks (soy, almond, 🌾rice, cashew, 🥥coconut, macadamia)
🍵 tea
- 🫖 teapot to share
🥤 juices and/or smoothies
- 🍌🍓🍑🍍🥑🍏🍐🥝🥭🥥🫐🟣

eating:

pastries
- 🥐 croissants
  - 🥐♨️ heated croissants
  - 🌱🥐 vegan croissants
  - 🥐🍫 chocolate croissants
    - 🌱🥐🍫 vegan chocolate croissants
- 🧁 cupcakes/muffins
- 🧁♨️ option to warm them up
🥯 bagels
- 🥯♨️ toasted
- 🥯🥪 bagel sandwiches (with some sort of filling)
  - 🥯♨️🥪 toasted bagel sandwiches (with some sort of filling)
- toppings / inside
  - 🥯🧈 butter
  - 🥯🧀 cream cheese
  - 🥯🌱🧀 plant-based cream cheese
  - 🥯🥜 peanut butter
  - 🥯🍌 banana
  - 🥯🍃 greens
  - 🥯🍅 tomato
  - 🥯🐟 lox
🍞 toast
- 🍞🥑 avocado toast
🥚 hardboiled egg
🍳 scrambled egg
🥔 tatertots
🌯 burrito

other items for sale:

🫘♨️ roasted beans
🎁 gifts

payments:

💰 takes cash
💳 takes credit

amenities:

📡 wifi
🔌 outlets
standing bar
- bar stools / high chairs
ground level seating
- 🛋 couch(es)
- 🪑 chairs
  - with tables
🪟 windows
- 👀 people watching
parking outside
- bicycle racks
  - visible from cafe seating
- car spots
parklet outside
🌙 open late (til 20:00? 21:00? 22:00? 23:00? 24:00?)
🚻 bathroom(s)
- public or customers only
- 🔢 numeric code or 🔑 key from server
- 🧽 usually clean (or not)
- 🧼 has soap
- 🧴 has lotion

atmosphere / vibe

💁 friendly barista
🧹 clean
🧼 smells nice
🖼 scenic views
😎 hip/cool, place to be seen
📖 people reading books

neutral

🧑‍💻 people on laptops

undesirable:

🥶 cold or drafty
🗣 loud people talking

Sources:

many attributes noted from examples at https://tantek.com/w/sfcafes

coffee venues flattened common attributes

These are the top / common attributes of ☕️ coffee serving venues from my own experience that matter more than others: