{"id":23015,"date":"2026-09-06T01:03:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T01:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/23015\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T01:03:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T01:03:48","slug":"i-made-one-small-change-to-google-maps-now-i-never-forget-a-restaurant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/23015\/","title":{"rendered":"I made one small change to Google Maps; now I never forget a restaurant"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a terrible memory for restaurants. I can remember liking a place, but a few months later, I’ll see it on Google Maps and struggle to remember what made it worth going back to.<\/p>\n

I used to save restaurants whenever I found one I liked, thinking I’d remember why I saved it later. That didn’t work very well.<\/p>\n

I ended up with a growing collection of places that all looked equally good, even though my experiences with them were very different.<\/p>\n

I’ve since found a better way to save them in Maps, and it’s made it surprisingly easy to remember which places I enjoyed and which ones I don’t need to revisit.<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t\tI stopped ignoring these Google Maps features, and my commute improved instantly<\/p>\n

These underrated features completely changed how I use Maps<\/p>\n

Google Maps already had everything I needed<\/p>\n

I didn’t need another app to keep track of restaurants<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/p>\n

This might sound like I’m overcomplicating something that’s supposed to be simple, but I used to keep a spreadsheet for places I wanted to visit.<\/p>\n

I’d add the name of the restaurant or place, whatever details I wanted to remember, a link to its Google Maps listing, and eventually my rating and thoughts after I’d visited.<\/p>\n

It worked, but it also meant jumping between my spreadsheet and Google Maps whenever I wanted to look something up.<\/p>\n

The more places I saved, the more annoying it became. The spreadsheet had my notes and ratings, while Google Maps had the actual location, reviews, photos, opening hours, directions, and everything else I needed.<\/p>\n

At some point, I realized I was maintaining a separate database for places that already had a good home in Google Maps.<\/p>\n

So, instead of keeping all that information somewhere else, I started using Google Maps’ saved lists and organizing it better. Maps lets me create my own lists, save places in them, and keep a list private if I don’t want anyone else to see it.<\/p>\n

This has made tracking places much easier. Everything is now attached to the place itself, rather than in a spreadsheet that I have to cross-reference.<\/p>\n

When you find a place you want to remember, open it in Google Maps and tap Save. You’ll see your existing lists in the You tab in Maps.<\/p>\n

I stopped using saved places just as a wishlist<\/p>\n

I gave my saved places a purpose<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

I used to think of my saved restaurants as one big list of places I might want to try someday. The problem was that after I visited them, they just stayed there. After a while, I had no easy way to tell which restaurants I’d already tried or whether I even liked them.<\/p>\n

I now have a list titled Want to visit, where I add restaurants I haven’t tried yet. After I’ve been to one, I remove it from that list and add it to one of my personal categories: Visit again, Just okay, or Not worth it.<\/p>\n

That makes the list much more useful over time. Instead of having hundreds of saved restaurants staring back at me, I can separate the places I’m still curious about from the ones I’ve already experienced.<\/p>\n

Maps became my database<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

After I started using separate lists for restaurants I wanted to visit and restaurants I’d already tried, I wanted an easier way to remember what I thought of each place. That’s where the tags became useful.<\/p>\n

Instead of using them only as ratings, I can create tags that describe something specific about a place: Pizza, Good coffee, Brunch, Date night, Great service, Worth the drive, or Expensive.<\/p>\n

To set this up, open a saved list in Google Maps and tap Add a tag. If the Tags feature is available on your account, you can tap New tag and give it a name.<\/p>\n

Then open the list, tap the pencil icon next to a restaurant, choose Edit place, and assign the appropriate tag.<\/p>\n

When I open that list again, my tags appear at the top. If I tap Brunch, for example, Google Maps filters the list down to only the restaurants I’ve given that tag. I don’t have to scroll through everything I’ve saved to find the places I liked.<\/p>\n

My notes fill in the details that a rating can’t<\/p>\n

I can add details at any time<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

A rating can tell me that I liked a restaurant, but it can’t remind me why.<\/p>\n

Maybe I loved the tiramisu but wouldn’t go back for a full meal. Or maybe it was expensive, but the atmosphere made it worth it for a date night. Six months later, a simple “Good” rating won’t bring any of that back.<\/p>\n

That’s why I also add a short note to places I’ve visited.<\/p>\n

It could be a note like, “Great for brunch,” “Parking is difficult,” or “Worth the drive.” Sometimes I’ll note what I ordered or something I want to try next time.<\/p>\n

To add one, open the saved place from the list, tap the pencil icon, and type your note.<\/p>\n

This way, I’m leaving myself a few breadcrumbs so that when I come across the place again months later, I don’t have to rely on my memory.<\/p>\n

I started using the same idea for places that aren’t restaurants<\/p>\n

The same trick works for almost any place<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/p>\n

Although I initially used this system in restaurants, I found it to be just as effective for other places I want to remember.<\/p>\n

If I visit a hotel, shop, attraction, or somewhere I discover while planning a trip, I can save it to my list and add my own reminders about the experience.<\/p>\n

I prefer doing this to leaving a Google review. Google reviews are public, and sometimes I don’t want to publish an opinion because I want to remember something for myself.<\/p>\n

If I had a mediocre experience somewhere, I don’t necessarily need to tell the internet about it.<\/p>\n

It also keeps everything tied to the place itself. If I want to go back, I don’t have to find an old review I wrote or remember where I stored my notes.<\/p>\n

The place is already in Google Maps, along with its location and all the other information I might need.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t\tI dropped these 5 habits \u2014 and Google Maps navigation instantly got faster<\/p>\n

Small changes, big navigation boost<\/p>\n

My Google Maps saved list finally became useful<\/p>\n

I started this system because I kept forgetting which restaurants I’d enjoyed. Google Maps has become my personal database for tracking locations I want to visit, recalling my thoughts about them afterward, and noting details I might otherwise forget.<\/p>\n

I’ve started using it for more than restaurants. And because everything is attached to the place in Maps, I don’t need another app or system to keep track of it all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a terrible memory for restaurants. I can remember liking a place, but a few months later, I’ll see it on Google Maps and struggle to remember what made it worth going back to. I used to save restaurants whenever I found one I liked, thinking I’d remember why I saved it later. That<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7,8],"class_list":["post-23015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-restaurants","tag-restaurant","tag-restaurants"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dnc\/117221405872972894","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/restaurants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}