Here we go again.
Back in 2013, a real estate website, Movoto, compiled a list of “America’s Worst Cities for Food Lovers,” and San Bernardino landed at the top of the list.
Last week, it was WalletHub’s turn.
The personal finance website posted its list of “2016’s Best & Worst Foodie Cities,” and guess what?
Yep. San Bernardino loses again.
But … it’s not as bad as Fontana, apparently.
WalletHub ranks the top 150 U.S. cities using several criteria, such as average price of beer and wine, ratio of full-service restaurants to fast-food outlets, and number of coffee and tea shops per capita.
So, which city was No. 1 on the list? The same one that topped the 2013 Movoto list: Orlando, Fla.
I guess having half a dozen Waffle Houses counts for something.
In fact, three of the top four cities are in Florida.
The highest-ranked California city? San Francisco, obviously, landing at number five, despite being ranked number 77 for affordability.
San Diego is Southern California’s highest-ranked city, coming in at No. 28.
The Inland Empire doesn’t make an appearance on the list until No. 98, Riverside. San Bernardino is No. 144.
Other Inland Empire cities on the list: Rancho Cucamonga (106), Ontario (132), Fontana (146) and Moreno Valley (149).
At the bottom of the list is North Las Vegas. Surprising, since Las Vegas itself was way up at No. 15.
What a difference a few miles makes.
Of course, there are several criteria I find … questionable.
For instance, a portion of the rank is based on the number of ice cream and frozen yogurt shops per capita.
Sorry, San Bernardino’s last Dairy Queen closed a few years ago, and the city has never had a Menchie’s.
Another criterion used for the ranking is number of butcher shops per capita.
Really? What year do they think this is, 1955? We have these things called “supermarkets” now, and they have butcher shops inside them.
WalletHub also looked at the number of gourmet specialty-food stores — including candy stores, chocolatiers and cheese shops — per capita.
I would think that having those types of shops is contradictory, since afforability is 30 percent of the score, and I find specialty stores are typically more expensive than those that carry a larger variety.
Is San Bernardino a terrible city for foodies? Well, it’s certainly no San Francisco, but it does have plenty of food diversity, and it doesn’t take much effort to discover some really great places to eat.
That’s something you won’t find just by crunching numbers.
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