Settled

One friend can't eat pork. Another can't eat beef. Someone hates seafood. And one guy can't handle spicy. Settled uses Yelp AI to find the spots that actually works for everyone.

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Inspiration

We've all been there. Planning dinner with friends becomes an endless negotiation:

  • One friend can't eat pork
  • Another avoids beef
  • Someone hates seafood
  • And one person can't handle spicy food

The group chat spirals. "Thai?" "Too spicy." "Sushi?" "No seafood." "BBQ?" "Nothing there for me."

Settled was born from this exact frustration—a tool that finds restaurants accommodating everyone's dietary needs without the back-and-forth.

What it does

One person inputs the group's dietary restrictions and preferences. Yelp's AI finds restaurants that genuinely work for everyone.

Key features:

  • Single organizer flow - No links to share, no app downloads required
  • Comprehensive restriction support - Halal, vegetarian, gluten-free, no beef/pork/spicy, allergies
  • Budget awareness - Filter from $ to $$$
  • "Why it works" cards - See exactly how each restaurant accommodates your group
  • Instant sharing - Copy formatted results to your group chat

How we built it

  • Next.js 15 (App Router) for a mobile-first experience
  • Yelp AI Chat API v2 for natural language restaurant discovery
  • Tailwind CSS for responsive design
  • TypeScript for reliability

The magic is in query construction—we translate restrictions into prompts Yelp's AI understands:

"Recommend restaurants near San Francisco that are moderately priced. We need options for people who are No Beef, No Pork, No Spicy Food. We like Asian Cuisine, Good for Groups."

Challenges we ran into

  1. Query calibration - Too strict meant no results; too broad ignored critical restrictions
  2. Mobile input complexity - Adding multiple people with multiple restrictions needed to feel effortless
  3. Transparent recommendations - Users needed to trust why a restaurant was suggested

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Complete flow in under 60 seconds
  • Fully functional on mobile—where dinner decisions actually happen
  • Share button outputs chat-ready formatted text

What we learned

  • Yelp's AI handles nuanced dietary queries remarkably well
  • The best UX sometimes means one person takes the wheel
  • Dietary restrictions aren't edge cases—they're standard in any diverse friend group

What's next for Settled

  • One-tap reservations - Book directly through Yelp
  • Group voting - Let friends rank the top picks
  • Saved groups - Remember restrictions for recurring dinners
  • Calendar sync - Coordinate availability and book simultaneously

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