1. How a shop gets on the guide
A shop gets on the guide by being a real coffee shop, never by paying. New shops are found every week from Google Places, and each one has to pass a check that it is a coffee shop and not a chain or franchise before it goes up. Henrique's personal picks are separate: he chooses them from shops he has visited himself.
2. The rating you see is the Google rating
The score on each shop card is the shop's current Google rating, rounded to one decimal, not a number we invented. We show it because it's the rating you'd find anyway, and pulling it onto the card lets you compare spots at a glance. When we sort a list, the default order is by that rating, highest first.
3. Amenities are verified, not guessed
The tags that power our filters (specialty coffee, WiFi, outlets, laptop-friendly seating, group space, late hours) are tracked per shop and checked against Google Places data. So when a shop shows up under the work filter, it has WiFi, outlets, and laptop-friendly seating, not just one of the three.
4. How we keep it current
Hours, ratings, and amenities are re-checked against Google Places on a rolling schedule, about once a month per shop. Each shop page shows the date it was last verified, and neighborhood pages show the month they were last updated. If Google lists a shop as permanently closed, we take it down.
What we don't do
No paid placements. No sponsored picks. No pay-for-inclusion. Money never moves a shop up the list. Full policy on our disclosure page.