I got tired of flipping between Maps and Beli, so I made a small Chrome extension that shows Beli data in google maps
How it works
Chrome Web Store: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/fljjhnhomodeaaagknnpnkdcnaklaoam
Hi all! I'm a reporter with The Associated Press and an avid Beli user myself. I'm working on an article about "superusers" of hobby-tracking apps like Beli, Letterboxd, Goodreads, Strava, etc. Whether you only use Beli or you also have some of these other types of apps, as long as you're interested in chatting about your Beli use/why you turn to the app and would like to be interviewed for this story, I'd love to speak with you. Please DM me if you're interested! Happy to answer any questions here or via DM.
I just found this sub - reading everyone else’s complaints and have some ideas:
- adding a 4th “loved it” ranking - I tend to be overly positive / say I liked almost everything because the yellow “it was fine” just feels too harsh but it leads to so many 8s and 9s where they shouldn’t be. I think adding an “I loved it” option that would split the initial rankings into 4 categories would fix this.
-adding more categories for types of restaurants. I get so tired of comparing my favorite sandwich place or takeout spot to a really nice dinner out. My go-to casual dining experience should be up in my top 20 at least but it feels crazy when looking at it side by side with a Michelin star dining experience.
-maybe instead of adding a single ranking, upon setting up your profile you weight out how much you care about a restaurant’s actual food vs vibe/experience and then compare from there (ex. 60% food, 40% experience then you compare the restaurant to other restaurants’ food then you compare to other restaurants’ vibes and from there an overall score is calculated but you could still rank just by vibe or just by food if you want to) doesn’t have to be those two options, just an idea because I struggle with overrating places where I just had a great time
Also, I’m not sure if I just don’t understand the app but I’m confused by how to look at an areas top rated spots. If I search a city and select for it to show me “recs” and I sort by ranking, are those all the top spots in that area? Or is it showing me a subsection based on what it thinks I’ll like.
My girlfriend and I keep a spreadsheet of the restaurants we've been to together and the ones we want to go to (there's a column for if we've been yet or not). When a restaurant closes, we change the name to red font. We also have a field where we can leave little notes about what we liked. It's been a fun way to track stuff and it feels like both a journal and a to-do list.
For a while, I really wanted to simplify things and just switch to an Apple Maps guide. The main problem with that, though, is the listings aren't permanent. If a restaurant closes, they either stay indefinitely or sometimes vanish altogether. I don't want to forget about the places we've been to that aren't around anymore.
In a similar way, I wish we could use Beli, but as far as I figure right now, there are about three things missing:
- Legacy restaurants. Like I said, I wish we could still track restaurants that have closed within the app. It would maybe work if they had some kind of legacy badge on them and didn't contribute to the rankings. This is the main thing missing.
- Shared lists. Ideally, my girlfriend and I could maintain our own rankings of places we've been, but also have a shared list of places we've been to together and another for places we want to go together.
- Data export. Any app I use for journaling purposes like this needs some kind of way to export data in case the app shuts down in the future or something. Not being able to do that is a little odd, especially when they have an import option.
Does anyone know if there are options I missed for any of this stuff? Or maybe if they have plans to incorporate any of this in the future? Is there another app that seems like it would fit my needs better, or should we just keep at it with the spreadsheet?