 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Restaurant reviews |
| Founded | 1979 in New York City |
| Founders | Tim and Nina Zagat |
| Parent |
|
| Website | zagat |
The Zagat Survey, commonly referred to as Zagat (stylized in all caps; /zəˈɡæt/, zə-GAT) and established by Tim and Nina Zagat in 1979, is an organization which collects and correlates the ratings of restaurants by diners. For their first guide, covering New York City, the Zagats surveyed their friends. At its height around 2005, the Zagat Survey included 70 cities, with reviews based on the input of 250,000 individuals with the guides reporting on and rating restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, zoos, museums, music, movies, theaters, golf courses, and airlines. The guides are sold in book form, and were formerly only available as a paid subscription on the Zagat website.
As part of its more than $150 million acquisition by Google in September 2011, Zagat's offering of reviews and ratings became a part of Google's Geo and Commerce group, eventually to be tightly integrated into Google's services.[1] Google relaunched Zagat's website on July 29, 2013, with an improved interface, but cut down the site from 30 cities to nine. They released a searchable database of reviews from the other 21 cities in the following days while they worked on expanding to include more cities in the new site.[2] In December 2012, Google announced that it would lay off most former full-time Zagat employees that were previously extended as contractors at the time of the acquisition, leading to prophetic business reports describing the future of Zagat book production as bleak, and subsequent business news reports recording the contraction of their print businesses. Regardless, Google's acquisition and integration of Zagat provided it with a strong brand in local restaurant recommendations and ample content for location-based searches.[3]
On March 6, 2018, Google sold the company to restaurant discovery platform The Infatuation for an undisclosed amount.[4] In September 2021, The Infatuation was acquired by JPMorgan Chase for an undisclosed amount.[5]
- ^ Paynter, Ben (2018-10-01). "Remember Zagat? The iconic burgundy guidebook that helped shape the modern consumer era is back". Fast Company. Retrieved 2019-07-18.
- ^ Gannes, Liz. "Google's New Zagat Is Much More Limited (For Now), but It's Free". All Things D. Dow Jones & Company, Inc. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
- ^ Clampet, Jason (July 29, 2013), "Zagat Shrinks Print Operations, Launches Free, Stripped-Down Website" Skift.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Retuers (2021-09-09). "JPMorgan Chase to buy Zagat owner in bid to boost premium credit cards". New York Post. Retrieved 2023-12-24.