Advertisement

Restaurant wheel

“Where do you want to eat?” can eat up half an hour before anyone leaves the house. Spin once to choose a type of restaurant, then open your maps app and find the closest one.

Click the wheel or press SpaceTap the wheel to spin

40 entries on the wheel

Paste a column from a spreadsheet, or type. Write Anna *3 to give Anna three times the chance.

The wheel picked

Put this wheel on your site

Paste this code into a blog post, a Notion page or a class website. The wheel shows the entries it has now, so edit them first. Visitors spin it right on your page.

Advertisement

Spin the wheel Restaurant wheel

Choosing a type, not a place

Group dinners stall because the question is too wide. A cuisine is a better thing to vote on than a name: it narrows the search to a few real options in your area, and the person with a strong opinion about one specific spot gets less room to push. The 40 entries here cover the usual range, from diners and pizzerias to Ethiopian and Peruvian, with enough cheap places and enough sit-down places to suit most budgets.

Dietary needs are easy to handle by editing. If anyone is vegetarian, gluten-free or avoids pork, open Entries and remove the steakhouse, barbecue smokehouse or ramen shop as needed. Entries like Indian, Mediterranean, Thai and the vegetarian cafe tend to have something for everyone, so they are worth keeping.

Date nights, work lunches and family birthdays all go faster with a spin. When the group is bigger than six, make a rule before you spin that the result is binding, otherwise the wheel is only the first suggestion in a longer argument.

What's on this wheel

  • Thai
  • Taqueria
  • Diner
  • Ramen shop
  • Steakhouse
  • Pizzeria
  • Sushi bar
  • Indian
  • Mediterranean
  • Vietnamese pho
  • Korean barbecue
  • Burger joint
  • Brunch cafe
  • Deli
  • Seafood shack
  • Chinese takeout
  • Greek
  • Mexican sit-down
  • Southern comfort food
  • Barbecue smokehouse
  • Dim sum
  • Italian trattoria
  • Ethiopian
  • Middle Eastern grill
  • Salad and soup place
  • Noodle house
  • Buffet
  • Tapas and small plates
  • Dumpling shop
  • All-day breakfast spot
  • Wings place
  • Hawaiian poke
  • Vegetarian cafe
  • Fried chicken place
  • Peruvian
  • French bistro
  • Caribbean
  • Food hall
  • Bakery cafe
  • Falafel and shawarma

Advertisement

Spin, veto, search

  1. Ask everyone for one thing they cannot eat or will not pay for today, and delete matching entries in Entries.
  2. Spin the wheel. Each person may use one veto, which means Remove from wheel for that result and one more spin.
  3. Take the winner to your maps app, search for it nearby, and pick the best-rated place within ten minutes of where you are.

Advertisement

Restaurant wheel questions

How do we handle a group with different diets?

Remove the cuisines that cannot work for someone, then keep the ones with broad menus, such as Indian, Mediterranean, Thai and the vegetarian cafe. It is easier to filter the wheel in advance than to argue after it lands.

Should I put in actual restaurant names?

You can. Open Entries and type the names of your usual spots, one per line. A mixed list works too: five favorite places and a few cuisines for a wildcard.

How is this different from the What should I eat wheel?

The What should I eat wheel picks dishes to cook at home. This one picks the kind of place you go out to, so the next step is a map search, not the kitchen.

How many vetoes should a group allow?

One per person is a fair limit. More than that and the wheel turns into a long search, while zero vetoes sends someone to a place they truly dislike.

Advertisement

Similar ready-made wheels

All ready-made wheels

Make your own wheel with your list

More random tools