Last week, Eater ran a rather innocuous-sounding email from a reader complaining about out-of-date menus on Menupages, the king of NYC menu-listing websites. A polite member of the Menupages team responded, as did another reader; we ran both responses. In the days since the item ran, however, a darker flow of online menu-related correspondence has arrived at Eater HQ. A correspondence that has led to the beginning of an ongoing investigative series* that we're calling MenuGate.
Before we begin, let's go big picture on the players in this game. At the top of the heap is Menupages. Then there's Menupix, which seems to get the second-most traffic among the pure menu players, followed by the dark-horse of this race, Menutopia, which just launched last month yet already claims more menus than its competitors (see below). Also in the game: Zagat, which launched a menus section this past summer, and the new menus offering from New York Mag.
New York City menu counts, by site, in order of most menus claimed:
Menutopia: 6,787
Menupix: 5,776 (not including Hoboken)
Menupages: 5,298
New York: "Over 1,000" (no centralized menus listing; available for select listings)
Zagat.com: 964
So there's our playing field. Now, let's dig in.
· FW: Question About Menupages [~E~]
* Investigative in the sense of, "Receiving emails from Eater readers, then running them." Well, okay, plus some basic math and maybe even a phone call or two. Your contributions to MenuGate are welcome.