Address/Location Data
ID RESTAURANT FULLNAME ZIPL
1 Cedar Creek Inn 26860 Ortega Highway 92675
2 Ramos House Café 31752 Los Rios St 92675
3 Sarducci's Capistrano Depot 26701 Verdugo St 92675
4 Tannins Restaurant and Wine Bar 27211 Ortega Highway 92675
5 El Adobe 31891 Camino Capistrano 92675
6 Café Mozart 31952 Camino Capistrano 92675
7 Simply Fondue 31761 Camino Capistrano 92675
8 L'Hirondelle 31631 Camino Capistrano 92675
9 Bad to the Bone 31738 Rancho Viejo Rd 92675
10 Tea House on Los Rios 31731 Los Rios St 92675
11 El Maguey Mexican Restaurant 31481 Camino Capistrano 92675
12 Sundried Tomato 31781 Camino Capistrano 92675
13 Las Golondrinas 27124 Paseo Espada 92675
14 Mollie's Famous Café 32033 Camino Capistrano 92675
15 Carlos Mexican Restaurant 31878 del Obispo St 92675
16 El Molina De Oro 31886 del Obispo St 92675
17 Pedro's Tacos 31721 Camino Capistrano 92675
18 Aldo's Sidewalk Café 31882 del Obispo St 92675
19 Ciao Pasta 31661 Camino Capistrano 92675
20 Marie Callender's Restaurants and Bakeries 31791 del Obispo St 92675
21 Bravo Burgers 31722 Rancho Viejo Rd 92675
22 210 DANCE Restaurant and Bar 32124 Paseo Adelanto 92675
23 Ball Park Pizza 31654 Rancho Viejo Rd 92675
24 NYC Café and Catering 31888 Plaza St 92675
25 Denny's 27142 Ortega Highway 92675
26 Arby's 31776 del Obispo St 92675
27 Del Taco 31780 del Obispo St 92675
28 Mc Donald's 31822 del Obispo St 92675
29 Carl's Jr. 31852 del Obispo St 92675
30 Bistro 311 31105 Rancho Viejo Rd 92675
31 El Campion Taqueria y Tortilleria 31921 Camino Capistrano 92675
32 Subway 31882 del Obispo St 92675
33 Kentucky Fried Chicken 32032 Camino Capistrano 92675
34 Ricardo's Place 32082 Camino Capistrano 92675
35 Sol Del Sur Bistro 31115 Rancho Viejo Rd 92675
36 Rice Bowl Express 31888 del Obispo St 92675
37 Skimmers 31451 Rancho Viejo Rd 92675
38 Mr D's Pizza Grotto 31111 Rancho Viejo Rd 92675
39 Avenue Bagel and Café Inc 32101 Camino Capistrano 92675
40 Crazy Horse Steak House 27128 Paseo Espada 92675
41 The Waffle Lady 27126 Paseo Espada 92675
42 Sizzler 31863 del Obispo St 92675
43 Billy's Premium Deli 32118 Paseo Adelanto 92675
44 Brown Bag and Sandwich Co 32122 Paseo Adelanto 92675
45 Coach House 33157 Camino Capistrano 92675
46 Augustin Mexican Restaurant 32382 del Obispo St 92675
47 The Dutch Bakery 32341 Camino Capistrano 92675
48 Jack In the Box 26942 Ortega Highway 92675
49 Taco Bell 31771 del Obispo St 92675
50 El Pollo Loco 33953 Doheny Park Rd 92675
51 Taqueria El Coyotito 32141 Alipaz St 92675
Data Sources: 1. US Census Bureau 2000 (CA, county, and streets layers)
2. GoogleMaps (for restaurant addresses)
Write-Up
For this geocoding exercise, I chose to geocode 51 restaurants in my hometown of San Juan Capistrano located in Orange County, CA. The overall topic of the map includes the types of restaurants and their locations in San Juan Capistrano. Furthermore, questions might include what types of restaurants are found in this city? Are certain restaurants concentrated in a particular area? Or what is the overall distribution of restaurants? This map would be ideal for someone looking at overall restaurants in the city as well as act as a key for finding certain types of restaurants.
Geocoding complements this topic by assigning geographic coordinates to the restaurants and their addresses. Without geocoding, the geographic location of the restaurants could only be estimated. However, using geocoding allows for each restaurant address to be matched with addresses found in the streets layer for San Juan Capistrano. Matching the restaurant addresses to geographic locations in the streets layer allows for each restaurant to be accurately plotted on the map. By having a visual representation of the restaurants plotted on the map, the map becomes useful and provides answers to the questions stated above. For instance, by looking at the map it is clear that there is a diverse group of restaurants from upscale, to more moderately priced, fast food, and ethnic. A person craving Mexican food could look at this map and find the location of a Mexican restaurant. Additionally, geocoding allows for the visual display of distribution patterns. By looking at this map, it is clear that most of the fast food restaurants are concentrated on the same street. This pattern might lead one to ask why would all the fast food restaurants would be on the same street? One possible solution could be its ideal location next to the freeway for easy access and exposure to many people. Another distribution pattern made evident through geocoding is the overall distribution of the restaurants. Most of the restaurants seem to be clustered within one particular area. Further research on the area would show that the area with the highest concentration of restaurants is also the center of the town which attracts the most tourists. This could be one of many reasons to explain the restaurant distribution.
Overall, geocoding provides the easiest and most accurate method of matching locations with their geographic coordinates. Without being able to assign a geographic location to a place, it is difficult to gain an understanding of the relative location of that place. Additionally, there are many options within geocoding for matching data, whether it be based on streets, zip codes, county codes, etc. This presents the opportunity for locations with minimal information to still be geocoded on a map. Geocoding, along with other forms of location assignment such as geotagging and geosparsing, are tools that continue to increase the accuracy of maps and provide more detail about the location of places. Advances in these technologies have led to greater access for users and subsequently, the continued addition and improvement of geographic data and its visual representations.
