Las Vegas Reportedly Has Most Restaurants Per Capita, Sorta
The data’s dubious, but there’s no denying the number is a notable coincidence: Las Vegas reportedly has the highest density of restaurants in the U.S. with a sinful 666 per every 100,000 residents.
The numbers were crunched by Business.org as a marketing and traffic-generation tool (mission accomplished), a mash-up of Census Bureau, TripAdvisor and Yelp data.
While the devilish 666 has some entertainment value, it also comes with a metric hell-ton of caveats.
The population number used to calculate the “666 restaurants per capita ” is 651,319. That’s the population of the City of Las Vegas. (The Las Vegas Strip isn’t in the City of Las Vegas.)
Metropolitan Las Vegas has 2,227,053 residents. Using that number would certainly skew the “per capita” stat a bit.
The number of restaurants used is 4,337. That’s all of Las Vegas (gleaned from TripAdvisor), not just in the City of Las Vegas.
We’d do a better calculation of the number of restaurants in Las Vegas per capita, but even that number would be wonky because many of these restaurants aren’t for residents, they’re for tourists.
Speaking of wonky, the “restaurants per capita” report included what’s touted as the “top-rated local restaurant”: Yardbird Southern Table & Bar.
Yeah, no.
All due respect to Yardbird.
It looks like Business.org grabbed this information from Yelp, which currently shows Bacchanal Buffet and Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen as first and second “most recommended,” with Yardbird third. The “highest-rated” Las Vegas restaurant on Yelp seems to be Bajamar Seafood & Tacos, whatever that might actually be.
Which brings us to the question: Why did we even write about this in the first place?
Oh, right, 666.
If you add up all the numbers on a roulette table, they add up to 666. That’s why it’s sometimes referred to as the “devil’s game.”
There. This wasn’t a complete waste of time. Probably.
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