12:18Machine-translated from Azerbaijani by AIRead in Azerbaijani
TikTok Launches New Guide for Finding Restaurants and Booking Tables
TikTok launched a restaurant guide called “Must Eat” on October 28. The feature is initially available in New York, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. The guide brings together more than 40 million posts, reviews, and comments in city-by-city restaurant lists. With this, TikTok is beginning to compete more directly with platforms such as Yelp and Google Maps in restaurant searches.
“Must Eat” consists of more than just a map and written reviews. Videos about restaurants and user discussions are also displayed on the same page. Users can write reviews, call restaurants, and search for nearby restaurants on the map. They can save places they like to their collections. Each restaurant’s page also includes a link to TikTok videos about that location.
The “Must Eat” lists are divided into 2 sections called “Everyday Eats” and “Elevated Dining.” The first section features casual places suitable for everyday dining that are popular with neighborhood residents. The other section features restaurants chosen for celebrations, special occasions, and evenings out. Results can be filtered by cuisine, price, rating, distance, and location. Users can also choose to see only restaurants that are open at that time.
At some restaurants, tables can be booked through OpenTable directly within TikTok. The guide can be accessed from the search bar, the local content feed, restaurant pages, and location links in videos. This makes it possible to explore a place shown in a video without switching to another app. Restaurants without online reservations can be contacted by phone.
The new guide is part of the “TikTok GO” service. The service already allowed users to find and book hotels, attractions, and other experiences. According to TikTok, each restaurant is checked to ensure that it is open and operating before being added to the list. The lists prioritize independent restaurants and examples of local cuisine. No restaurant can pay to be included.
According to the company, in 2025, 27 million Americans visited an independent restaurant, cafe, or store for the first time after seeing it on the platform. Its impact on local spending is estimated at 4.7 billion dollars (approximately 8 billion manats). According to separate surveys, 38% of Generation Z finds new restaurants on TikTok. 69% of respondents use social media when choosing a restaurant. These figures show that food videos encourage people to visit those places.