Beli
Reviews and Complaints

I love this app, and have spent the past few days of having it entering restaurant I have been too that I can remember and love the concept! App is a little slow and freezes from time to time, and some restaurants (especially for some reason I’ve cream shops?) aren’t on the search list - however I clicked the request a new restaurant and wish that once they add that restraint instead of having to check back they would send a text or email notification. Overall tho still gave it 5 stars because it’s an awesome app and I’m really excited about it!

I’ve been using this app got about a week and I’m hooked. It’s really easy and intuitive to get started, and I can easily see it becoming a thing. Would like to see some more granularity in opinion options- sometimes I can’t choose between two venues because they are not in the same category, the vibe just isn’t comparable or it’s just not the right thing to compare. Add features around sharing costs, maybe something allowing friends to plan itineraries, and this is going to be the new community app. Looking forward to seeing what’s next with this.

This is what I’ve been looking foe. Great to keep as a list for memories, recommendations, and ive noticed I go to more places now that I have such a comprehensive list. I’m excited about the future of the app and would like to see:
- ability to check the menu/website/hours within the app, or at least be re routed to google maps which has that info
- once i rank 1 restaurant from a chain (ex, hillstone) it doesnt give me the option to rank the same exact place in a different neighborhood
- ability to make reservations thru open table or resy directly

I've tried and failed using so many other ways to keep track of where I've eaten, where I want to eat, and where I never want to go again. Every previous method has failed me.

Beli has gotten everything right and I've not even used it to see what others recommend. It easily imported lists of restaurants I want to try around the world that I've been saving to Google Maps.

If you watch, listen or read about where.to eat you have a growing list of where to eat around the block and the world. Now you want recall THE great place to eat in the future this is the app you need.

Hey guys, I love this app! The idea is fantastic and I love the rating style.

My only suggestion is certain things like breakfast places and pizza shops should be separate genres if you will. I dont know how to rank a breakfast sandwich place vs a nice sit down dinner. Same with a pizza shop vs a tapas restaurant.

It’d be awesome to be able to sort by pizza or breakfast and find places like that rather than have them all mixed in. I wouldn’t want too many different genres bc then it becomes too narrowed down but those two seem too different from everything else. Just my two cents, loving the app!

This app rocks. I used to keep track of things on maps, or in my head, or in the notes app. It was just inefficient. Not to mention that I could never remember all the places I wanted to try! Beli is great because I can do it all. I can track places I’ve eaten and make notes about what I liked. I can track places I want to go and jot down why (a dish? A vibe?). The recommendation feature is an awesome way to gain exposure to new places. The map capabilities in the app are especially useful—you can see which recommendations or places you’d like to try are nearby, so being in a new city doesn’t mean meh food.

Legit this app is the real deal. A few years ago I stayed in a hotel in Japan and my experience when it came to the amenities etc, was “wow I feel like this hotel has thought of EVERYTHING” like when I knocked my phone underneath the bed and went o retrieve it, there was a flashlight installed into the leg of the bed. The beli app is exactly like that. I kept thinking “wow it would be so cool if I could see my friends’ bookmarks against my own” and boom, there it is. You can even make reservations and knock restaurants of lists with your friends. So so cool. They have really thought of everything. Your team should be so proud!

This app is already much better than google map lists as it makes restaurant reviews social and has a better UI, but still could be improved:

- Ability to toggle on/off to show personal notes in the overall list view
- Be able to add date(s) that the spot was visited
- Be able to import notes from google list export data
- Ability to create additional customized lists and share these with certain friends
- Be able to post and suggest restaurants to tagged friends
- See saved spots on the map based on diff tags

So far though, I'm enjoying using it and have been very impressed with the number of spots included and the UI

I love this app… finally there’s an alternative to the myriad 0-5 star systems out there and I’ve already found most of my favorite recent discoveries via Beli. On top of that, I find that the comparative rating system also is effective at capturing the way I think about my dining experiences, which is more holistic and includes the ambiance, company, etc. I enjoy going back and asking what my favorite restaurants really have been and comparing what on the surface may appear to be very different experiences. All in, this is a great app, clean and intuitive, and provides a service that I definitely haven’t found anywhere else yet.

Like the title says, I love the idea for the app, and continue to use it but I have a few places I wish things were better.

- I’d love there to be an easier way to view the map. There should be a map icon to click on the bottom menu!

- Seeing all restaurants which have been rated (not just by friends) on a map is something I’d like. Similar to Google maps or Yelp it would help me find places to go in new areas as it is now, without knowing the name of a restaurant or I can’t just find it, unless it’s recommended or trending.

- I want to see average ratings along with friend ratings of restaurants. Seeing both gives a better idea than only what maybe one friend thinks.

I always hated how Yelp, google maps, etc. have just one number rating, from strangers. It’s impossible to get any context at all about what’s driving it. Beli is simple but gives so much more color to every restaurant ranking. The comparative ranking (vs numerical) is a really cool twist - makes you actually think about the meal you just had compared to other meals like it. The social aspect of beli is amazing (and really really fun). How many times have you texted out to a group of friends, “hey have you been to XXX, would it be good to have a birthday dinner there / bring my parents / whatever”? This app puts all that info in one place and then some. Send it to all your friends!

I never ever voluntarily rate apps, but I decided to rate this one because I’m obsessed with it. I discovered it earlier this week and it has literally been my most used app this week. I love eating each restaurant I’ve been to and I love being able to add photos and favorite dishes!

It would not be a fair review if I did not include suggestions for improvement. I would love to include a tab that lets you put a do not order dish if a restaurant were to have a dish that is absolutely terrible. I would also like to have more sorting criteria, so If you just want to look at ice cream places, or bubble tea places, or bakeries, you could. I also don’t love that the app makes you compare two restaurants when they may be completely different cuisines and/or extremely hard to compare. I understand that the overall goal is to have a compiled list of best places to worst places, but it is very difficult to compare a lot of restaurants.

Beli was recommended to me by a friend along with a warning that I’d have to put a few hours of work in to get the most out of it. I spent a NYC > DC train ride enthralled with the app and bugging my wife about which of our favorite places she’d prefer. The accuracy of the relative ranking of preferences is evident in the spot-on scores I see for places I’ve already been to and had forgotten to rate. The option to tag certain places for certain use cases (nice dinner out versus late night eats) fine-tunes the recommendations based on what you want at the time. For the lazy foodies, Beli greases the skids to a quick decision and you know that every time you go out, the recommendations will only get better. For the creatures of habit, Beli curates a path away from the over-used local haunts and into the hidden gems you always walk by. I imagine that great, tiny restaurants with limited means for advertising and signage are thankful for this app, as it brings people like me away from the go-to restaurants

This app has a ton of potential but is currently not exactly right for me. I like the comparative rating system and I really like the user experience overall. But there are a couple of aspects that keep this from being my go-to app for tracking the restaurants I’m interested in.

First the app currently lacks any ability to research info on a restaurant other than their own website (which is frequently not available). Other similar apps will at least link out to Google in order to get some further context. I’m sure there’s a good rea$on why that’s not available today but it’s a pretty significant limitation.

Related note, the app is very oriented toward the social aspect and sharing notes and reviews with friends. That’s the advertised purpose of the app, so OK, but it is not that great for an individual just wanting to track restaurants they are interested in or have visited already.

I’m sure this app will be perfect for many but for now, my own search for the ideal personal restaurant To Do list will continue.

I was so glad when Beli came out. Before then, the only options to track restaurants were Yelp and Foursquare, which don’t have the “note” function that Beli does. Being able to jot down note and utilize this app as a “doc and spreadsheet” is what I think makes Beli different from the other apps.

However, Beli is missing a key function to actually call itself a tracker. Currently, there is NO way to record the number of times or dates you have visited a restaurant.

The purpose of a tracker is to TRACK information, but Beli is strictly on a rating system, making this more like a restaurant ranking app than a tracker. I suggest adding a “check in” button or something similar.

Additionally, Beli asks you to rank every restaurant you add to your list, but it’s incredibly hard to compare a brunch place vs fine dining. This issue can be circumvented if custom labels were allowed.

Overall, it has been disappointing to see that Beli doesn’t actually function as a tracker as marketed. However, I will continue to support Beli as I’m hopeful that more functions will be developed in the future!

I was bemoaning the lack of restaurant tracking apps when I came across Beli. It literally has everything that I wanted, mainly the ability to filter by price, location, cuisine, etc. A couple critiques: The ranking system gets a little tedious, and although you can say “too tough,” I wish I could opt out of it completely. I don’t really need a ranking of the places I’ve been- I’d rather make my own list within that of places I’ve liked. And it’s difficult to compare an ice cream place with an upscale steak house. Also, and this is very minute, it would be great if the short list icon was listed on the main restaurant page and not hidden within the labels. Would just be a bit easier. Being able to create your own labels would be really nice, too. I hope they are able to create a desktop-compatible app soon. I would love to be able to organize on a bigger screen! All in all, it’s a great app and I will be recommending to literally everyone.

Update: Can you make it so that we can scroll through the search suggestions without it constantly reverting back to the keyboard after I click on a restaurant?

I really love this concept! They have a pretty comprehensive directory of restaurants in NYC. Sometimes the address is incorrect, but if you report it, they fix it in about 24 hours.

I have two suggestions to improve it. Number one would be to rank restaurants ONLY amongst other restaurants in their category (either by Cusine category or based on the tag (date night, brunch, cocktails, etc.)) Otherwise, what happens is you start comparing apples and oranges. It's not fair to rank a Korean BBQ restaurant against a brunch pancake spot or against a lunch deli. There isn't a comparison there. My rankings can get a little wonky and overstated or understated because it makes me compare restaurants to other restaurants that are completely different aesthetics or purposes. A fancy dinner date spot isn't comparable to a bagel shop. It would be great if I could either rank all of brunch spots against only brunch spots. Similarly, all of my Italian restaurants against ony other Italian restaurants.

Second is to add more tags. They're kind of random right now! A good few to add would be: brunch, first date, healthy, aesthetic interior, rooftop, etc.)

Any new rankings won’t load their scores.

Dont download. Waste of time. You cant even log in

App is biased to only Manhattan. Its not the only borough of NYC.

Was referred by a friend and when attempting to sign up I get stuck on the “enter your name” form. The submit button remains greyed out despite me entering in my name.

I think it’s a really good idea but when I type in my city it keeps putting me in a different state with the same city name. Even with my location on it doesn’t populate anything

Unfortunately there has been a bug for a month now that makes the ratings miscalculate. Since ratings are like, the whole bag with Beli… its making it impossible/not worth it to use!

This app is a fun idea. However, I downloaded, and by the time I woke the next morning I had a half dozen spam marketing text messages— and I never have spam texts. No thanks.

There are plenty of other great ways to find restaurants in any given city.

I really like the concept of the app - a way to organize and rate all your restaurants and keep a bucket list. Unfortunately, the software backing the app is extremely underdeveloped. Every photo added to rankings is deleted/not saved, which is frustrating and hopefully will be solved soon by the developer.

I plugged all the restaurants into the app I’ve eaten in NYC (not one of them sushi) and 90% of the recommended restaurants are SUSHI RESTAURANTS- what kind of horrible algorithm is this app made on?!?

I mean sure sushi is great but out of the thousand restaurants in NYC- all sushi? Typical Manhattan implants. Go home.

An app for reviews that does not let me make my own rating is wild to me. The app calculates your score for you based on how you rank the restaurants relative to another and to my understanding there isn’t a way to manually set the rating myself for each restaurant. How could you take away a pivotal aspect of rating apps?

Why is this members only? I found this app through tiktok and was excited to use it when I move to NYC soon but I can’t join.