[instrumental]
The popular social media and restaurant recommendation app Beli has gained traction throughout the Northwestern campus within the past few years. After being founded in 2021, Beli allows users to track which restaurants they’ve been to, rate restaurants, and keep up with the restaurants their friends are dining at.
Northwestern students alone have left thousands of restaurant reviews on this platform.
Rebecca Gu is the forty-second most active Beli user at Northwestern.
REBECCA GU: If you think about Strava, which you use to log your runs, or Letterboxd, which you use to review movies, it’s similar for food. So, everytime you eat out at a restaurant you can add photos of what you ate, you can put a little review, any tips you want for other people to know. It will overall give it a rating by default, you just rank it within the other restaurants or cafes you’ve been to.
Selina Xu first downloaded Beli two years ago with many of her friends. However, she was not very active on Beli at first…
SELINA XU: There was one day I was waiting with my dad in the Shanghai airport and we had a delay so we were sitting there for like three hours, and I was so bored. So I was like, let me open this app and start ranking. And I just got so addicted so fast. I went through my camera roll and literally started ranking all the restaurants I could find that I’d been to. And I feel like ever since then it’s been history.
XU compared Beli to other forms of social media.
XU: It’s still just very fun to see what all my friends are eating as well, and post my photos and reviews even though I am not a food critic, and I am not a picky eater. But sometimes it’s just fun.
And that sense of fun that Beli brings offers users the chance to reflect and remember their dining experiences.
XU: So, I said in the description: ‘Currently writing this instead of studying for my data science exam. This was really good. My favorite was for sure the vodka rigatoni. It lives up to the hype. The other pasta was kind of questionable, but still good. The dessert was so freaking good, I’m still thinking about it, and of course, gorgeous interior and vibes. I wish I got to try to drinks, the only downside was that something about this food did not agree with my stomach LOL. Can you tell I don’t want to study?’
Sophia Cheng started using Beli in 2023.
SOPHIA CHENG: Oh my god, I am an all time top 0.5 diner in my hometown of Los Altos, California.
But beyond the funny reviews and tasty memories, Beli helps users figure out where and what they want to eat.
CHENG: I can sort of see what the most popular dishes are and so I do order according to that often, so it makes for a great experience.
When it feels like there’s more social media than ever, Beli brings a new twist to the genre. One that Gu welcomes.
GU: It’s such a random, unique way of connecting people, but I feel like food brings people together, so it’s a really good way to do so.
For WNUR News, I’m Leanna Brown with production help from Sahana Unni.
[instrumental]
