Data sources
Where every listing comes from
Last full rebuild: October 4, 2026.
| Source | What we use it for | Licence / terms | Read | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OpenStreetMap | Restaurant, café and takeout listings: name, address, hours, cuisine, diet tags | ODbL 1.0 — © OpenStreetMap contributors | October 3, 2026 | 2,808 places |
| Restaurants’ own websites | Menu items and prices, read from each restaurant’s own menu page | Short factual extracts (item name and price) with a link to the source | October 3, 2026 | 2,766 items from 231 websites |
| Ottawa Food Bank — agency look-up | Community food banks: hours, booking, ID rules, contacts | Public information, linked to the source | October 3, 2026 | 29 programs |
| 211 Ontario | Rural and independent food banks and food cupboards | Public listings, linked to the source | October 3, 2026 | 25 programs |
| Program organizations’ own websites | Meal programs, fridges, campus food banks and more | Public information, linked to the source | October 3, 2026 | 51 programs |
| City of Ottawa — Ottawa Neighbourhood Study boundaries (Gen 3) | Neighbourhood boundaries used to group places by area | Open Government Licence — City of Ottawa | October 3, 2026 | 116 neighbourhoods in 28 areas |
| City of Ottawa address locator | Map positions for program addresses | City of Ottawa public geocoding service | October 3, 2026 | 50 addresses |
How menus are read
We visit the website a restaurant lists in OpenStreetMap, follow links to its menu pages on the same site, and keep a menu item only when the line names the dish and a price appears with it. Restaurants that publish menus only as images, or only on delivery apps, are not read. We do not copy descriptions or photos.
Our crawler identifies itself as HelpFindFoodMenuCheck and links to this page. A restaurant that prefers not to be read can tell us and we will stop.