The two interactive maps on this page display the locations of New York’s many Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Dunkin Donuts. The data comes from the NYC health department and their inspection results, as of early October 2013.
These maps are the end product of my tutorial on how to do data visualizations with spreadsheets and Google Fusion Tables. There are some anomalies in the data (such as a few geocoded locations) and I’ve left them in as part of the tutorial.
Mapping by ownership
This first map shows the locations marked by type:
- green for Starbucks
- yellow for McDonald’s
- brown for Dunkin Donuts
As this is only the most basic of plots you can do with Fusion Tables, I’ll leave it to the statisticians and Malcolm Gladwell to explain the seemingly strong correlation between the locations of Starbucks and the population density of New Yorkers who are able to afford living and/or purchasing Frappucinos in Manhattan.
Mapped by health scores
This second map shows the same locations, but marked according to the score of their latest health inspections. The colors come from the grading curve of the NYC-DOH’s system:
- 0 to 13 points is an A
- 14 to 27 is a B
- C is 28 points and above.
Summary of the scores
Here is some summary data for the three major brands:
| Company | Number of | Minimum score | Max score | Average score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dunkin Donuts | 507 | 0 | 39 | 8.76 |
| McDonald's | 235 | 2 | 67 | 10.59 |
| Starbucks | 269 | 2 | 29 | 6.70 |
Note: This summary only covers the most recent inspections for these locations as of early October 2013. But I don’t think the scores vary greatly over the history of the NYC inspection program.
The scores for the big chains are pretty good. If you’re surprised, it’s because you thought there was a correlation between tastiness of food and cleanliness of location. However, it’s more likely that bigger companies have better standardized processes for keeping things within the health code.
Make your own mashup
Think you can do better? Me too. You can get the data used here and follow how I made it on the tutorial page. Or, if you’re feeling lazy, just copy my Google Fusion table directly.
If you’d rather map something other than massive restaurant chains, check out NYC’s official data portal for the full dataset.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at dan@danwin.com or on Twitter: @dancow