What we don't list and why
If you’ve poked around the site, you’ve probably noticed gaps. Some businesses you’d expect to see aren’t here. Some categories that other guides have, we don’t. We get asked about this regularly — usually politely, sometimes not — and it’s worth putting the answer on a page so we don’t have to repeat it.
The short version: we curate, and “curate” sometimes means leaving things out on purpose. Here’s the longer version.
Things we don’t list at all
Strip clubs. Not a moral statement. Just not the site we’re building. There are a few in the broader region. Google works.
Adult entertainment, smoke shops, vape shops, CBD storefronts. Same answer. Real businesses, fine, just not what this site is for.
Tattoo parlors and piercing studios. This one’s just editorial focus — we’d rather cover the Gulf Coast specifically and not be a generic regional directory.
Real estate listings, condo sales, timeshare pitches. We link to the big rental managers when it makes sense. We don’t list individual properties for sale or rent. Affiliate links would change the editorial relationship and we’d rather not.
Wedding venues as a category. Some venues we cover happen to host weddings — Cobalt, the Bama, the Wharf, several of the marinas. We mention it when it’s relevant. We don’t run a separate “best wedding venue” surface because the answer to that question depends on so many things that don’t generalize.
Churches and houses of worship. Personal services. Locals know where their church is; new arrivals find one through their own networks. Out of scope.
Most chain stores. We list Publix because everyone uses Publix and the locations matter logistically. We don’t list every Starbucks, every Walgreens, every dollar store. The chain footprint is what it is.
Things we don’t list specifically — and why
Charters we don’t trust. A few captains in the OB charter fleet have reputations that the locals know about and we know about. We don’t put them on the site. We won’t tell you which ones. The way you avoid them is by walking the docks, asking around, and using the captains who other captains recommend.
Restaurants that have been to court over health code violations multiple times. Not all of them — every restaurant gets dinged occasionally. But repeat-offender places stay off until something changes. We don’t run a public shame list either.
Businesses run by people who’ve been credibly accused of fraud or harassment. This is rare but it comes up. We leave the place off. We don’t write an explainer about why. We just don’t list it.
A handful of bars and restaurants the locals quietly hate. Sometimes for good reasons (treating staff badly, ripping off renters, etc.), sometimes for petty ones (changed the menu, raised prices, sold to corporate). We try to draw the line at “things that affect customers.” We don’t always get it right.
What about reviews?
We don’t run reviews. Nashville Guru (the structural model for this site) doesn’t either. The way a place gets on our pages is we wrote about it because we wanted to. The way a place stays off our pages is we didn’t. This is more honest than a five-star system gameable by the business owner’s cousins, and less work for us.
If you disagree with our take on a specific place — if we wrote up a restaurant you think is a tourist trap, or we missed a place you love — the correction form exists for that. We read everything. We change things.
What about businesses that submit themselves?
Several have. We’ve added some. We’ve passed on others. The decision is editorial, not financial. Submitting is free and always will be. Being listed doesn’t cost anything. Refusing to list isn’t a shakedown — there’s no upgrade tier we want you to buy.
The places we add from submissions are the ones where we read the description, looked at the business, asked around, and thought “yeah, this fits.” The ones we don’t add fall in a few buckets:
- Doesn’t fit the tone of the site. A great catering company might be exactly what you need; we don’t have a catering directory.
- Out of scope geographically. We get submissions from Pensacola Beach proper, Navarre, Destin. Those are real Gulf Coast places, just not the Key.
- Couldn’t verify something basic. The address didn’t exist, the phone went to a personal voicemail, the website was a stock template. We’re not going to vet you forever, but we’re not going to add you blind either.
The bigger why
There’s a version of a local guide where it’s a phone book — every business that exists, every category, every nuance. That site already exists. It’s called Google Maps. It works.
We’re trying to do the other thing: a guide where the omissions matter as much as the inclusions, where a reader can trust that what’s listed is something we’d send our family to, and where the voice is recognizable enough that you can tell whether you agree with our takes or not.
If we get something wrong, the fix is to fix it. If you want to argue about what we should add or drop, that argument is welcome. The site is alive.
— Kathy