It's no secret that Naperville has become something of a foodie's paradiseshowing off everything from famous restaurant chefs from high-end steakhouses to Korean, Filipino and French cuisine.
But according to Naperville resident Juan David Campolargo, some local establishments aren't getting the attention they deserve.
“Especially in Naperville, you see so many restaurants opening and closing so quickly,” Campolargo said.
The main problem, he said, is visibility. Specifically, online visibility and what Google does or doesn't show you in searches.
“When openings are dominated by algorithms that reward those who have already gained traction, it becomes much more difficult for new or independent places to survive long enough to ever be opened, even for people who live a few blocks away,” he said.
To solve this problem, Campolargo created Map of Naperville's Underrated Dishesa data-driven approach to highlighting restaurants that don't always appear at the top of Google searches.
“I just created this thing to hopefully help,” he said. “The (real) heroes are the restaurants and the people behind them. My humble goal is to keep local establishments alive and make our city a little more connected.”
Although Campolargo himself does not work in the restaurant business, he has previously been involved in various food-related projects. There's no particular reason why the 23-year-old takes on these projects, other than curiosity and a strong desire to solve problems, he says.
For example, when Campolargo was a student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he created a bot account on X, formerly known as Twitter, with the handle @UIUCFreeFood, which advertised free food opportunities on campus. The account is still active and has over 2000 followers although previously encountered problems with the university administration due to misleading reports and a case of alleged theft, which Campolargo declined to comment on.
His latest project is the Naperville Underrated Foods Map, which can be found at: www.juandavidcampolargo.com/projects/naperville-food-mapis a continuation of his problem-solving efforts.
“When you type “Where to eat?” in Google, how does Google show you what it shows you? It’s a combination of factors, right?” Campolargo said.
These factors include how close a particular restaurant is to where a person is currently located, how many positive reviews the restaurant has received, and whether the restaurant is part of a national chain.
In his food map, Campolargo focused on “familiarity,” which refers to businesses that have significant positive ratings, a large number of reviews, or are well-established brands that are more likely to be displaced by the algorithm.
“And then you have a reinforcing loop,” he said. “If you're doing well and you're popular, Google is great for you, but if you're new, new or independent, you really don't have a chance of getting famous.”
In the context of the map, undervaluation is defined as “better than would be expected given how certain places typically perform online,” Campolargo said.
For example, if you have 10 Thai restaurants in close proximity that perform similarly and have an overall rating of 3.6, the average rating of those 10 restaurants together becomes the expected rating. A restaurant that significantly exceeds this standard is considered underrated—not because it is the best overall, but because it exceeds diners' expectations, Campolargo said.
Using a machine learning model, the map takes into account more than just restaurant ratings. It also takes into account cuisine, price level, review volume, neighborhood network, chain or independent restaurant, restaurant type, and location-level attention patterns. Using all these factors, the model learns the typical patterns for restaurants in the area, produces an expected rating for each establishment, and then flags those that perform better than expected.
Rosie's Home Cookingfor example, has an average rating of 4.7, while the average rating of American restaurants on the map is 3.83, meaning Rosie's is performing +0.87 better than similar restaurants in the area, marking it as underrated.
“If you think about it and look at the website, you'll see places that locals love when they try them, but they don't always show up when you do a general search for 'restaurant near me,'” Campolargo said.
The goal of the map is simple: to help people find local restaurants and support the community by bringing more traffic to businesses that might otherwise be overlooked.
“The people behind the restaurants, man, they work really, really hard every day, feeding so many people, paying taxes, making our city what it is,” Campolargo said.
You can check out the map of underrated food options in Naperville at www.juandavidcampolargo.com/projects/naperville-food-map.
