A local business map you can trace back to its sources

What Racco Local is

When you move to a new city, the first questions are usually practical. Is there a hair stylist nearby who speaks Mandarin? Where can I find Taiwanese snacks? Racco Local gathers those places into maps and lists, each with its address, contact details and sources, so you can judge for yourself.

The map and the directory are two views of the same data. The list pages can be read without opening the map, and the map is there for finding what's near you. Instead of rushing to list thousands of businesses, we publish them one at a time once they're verified, and keep adding cities and communities.

Three things we keep separate

For every business we label these three things separately, and the tags look different on purpose so they never get mixed up:

Community background

The background of the owner or the brand, such as "Self-described Taiwanese background." Shown only when we have a clear source.

Cuisine / style

What the business sells and its style, such as Taiwanese cuisine or Korean BBQ. Serving Taiwanese food does not make a restaurant Taiwanese-owned.

Languages spoken

The languages the business says it can serve you in. We never assume someone "probably speaks Mandarin" because of their background.

How we label community background

A community background can be shown only on one of the five grounds below, and each one needs a source you can open. The wording on the page changes with the grounds, so what you read tells you how strong our evidence is.

1. Self-described Taiwanese background

   The business's website, official social account or a statement sent to us clearly says who runs it, for example "founded by Taiwanese immigrants."

2. Taiwanese-run, per press reports

   A credible publication, such as the LA Times, World Journal or Korea Daily, clearly reports the owner's background.

3. Taiwanese brand (per the brand)

   The brand's official website clearly says the brand was founded in Taiwan or Korea. A franchise owner may have a different background, so we say "brand," not "owner."

4. Taiwanese brand (per press reports)

   A credible publication clearly reports that the brand comes from Taiwan or Korea.

5. Taiwanese background, confirmed by a community group

   A community organization has explicitly confirmed the owner's background. Membership in a chamber of commerce alone does not count.

If we can't confirm that a chain location is run directly by its parent company, we label it as a brand. When a brand changes hands, we describe the current situation.

What doesn't count

At most, these clues go under "Cuisine / style," or nowhere at all:

• A name, sign or menu that says "Taiwanese-style," "authentic Korean," 台式 or 韓式
• The owner's surname (Lee, Chen, Kim), looks or accent
• Reviews written mostly in Chinese or Korean
• Being in Koreatown, the San Gabriel Valley or a similar neighborhood
• A review site filing it under Taiwanese or Korean
• Appearing on a chamber of commerce or club membership list

If we can't find a reliable source, we don't label a community background. Those businesses stay out of every community list and aren't offered to search engines until we have evidence. If you think a label is wrong, use "Suggest an edit" on the business page to tell us.

How listings are collected and verified

Every listing goes through the same steps, and each step is logged. A candidate is never published automatically just because its evidence looks good.

1. 01 Discovery · Finding candidates

   We find candidates on business websites, in credible news coverage, through reader suggestions and owner submissions, and in government open data. Club lists and business directories are used only as leads, never as the source of anything we publish.

2. 02 Candidate Queue · Holding them for review

   New finds wait in a candidate queue with the raw data, source links and retrieval dates. Nothing in the queue is public.

3. 03 Validation · Checking the basics

   We check the required fields, address, phone, website and category, and whether the community grounds and sources meet our rules.

4. 04 Deduplication · Removing duplicates

   We compare phone numbers, websites, addresses, names and distance so the same place never shows up twice. Each branch of a brand gets its own page.

5. 05 Review · Editor review

   An editor opens every evidence link before approving, merging or rejecting a candidate.

6. 06 Publish · Going live

   Only approved listings appear on the map and in the city, community and category lists, which update on their own.

7. 07 Refresh · Rechecking

   Listings not checked in 180 days, whose website stops working or that are reported closed go into a recheck queue. A person decides what happens next; nothing is taken down automatically.

Every business page shows when its details were last checked and when each source was retrieved. If we haven't confirmed the hours, we say so, so please check with the business before you go.

No reviews, no star ratings

Racco Local doesn't collect or show reviews or ratings, and we don't write stories about businesses or their owners. We record only facts we can source: where a business is, how to reach it, what it offers and which languages it serves. For opinions, use the review site you already trust.

Photos

We only use photos the business has licensed to us, photos we took ourselves, or photos whose license allows reuse, always with credit. Businesses without a photo show a Racco illustration, which is not a picture of the business.

Suggest, report, remove or claim

• Suggest a business: Know a place that belongs on the map? Send us its name and any sources you know of. Suggested businesses are verified like every other listing before they go live. Suggest a business
• Report an error: Use "Suggest an edit" on the business page to tell us about a wrong address, phone number or hours, or that the business has closed or moved.
• Ask for removal: If you own a business and don't want it on Racco Local, choose removal under "Suggest an edit" on its page, or email us. We'll take it down once we confirm the request.
• Claim a business: Owners can choose "Claim this page" on the business page, verify with an email address listed on the business's website, and then help us correct the details. Claiming only shows that you can speak for the business. We never ask for proof of nationality or ethnicity, and claiming has nothing to do with the community label.

Sponsorship and ranking

The natural order of our lists is not for sale, and no one can pay to move up. Whether a business appears depends only on whether we've verified it.

If we ever offer sponsored placements, they will be kept clearly apart from the regular lists and carry this label: Sponsored

Privacy

For directions, phone and website taps on business pages, we keep only anonymous daily totals per business. We don't record IP addresses or emails, and we don't use cookies for this.

We Live in USA uses Google Analytics to learn which pages are useful, with Google Consent Mode: in regions that require consent, no analytics or advertising cookies are stored until you agree. Contact details you leave on a suggestion or report form are used only to reply to you.