Many people who regularly use restaurant discovery platforms like Yelp find themselves repeatedly seeing establishments they've already decided against—whether due to bad experiences, dietary restrictions, or personal preferences. This creates unnecessary noise in search results and forces users to mentally filter unwanted options during every search. Currently, there's no native way to permanently hide these restaurants, making the discovery process less efficient over time.

How It Could Work

One approach to solving this problem could be a browser extension that lets users selectively block specific restaurants from appearing in Yelp search results. The extension might:

• Add simple "block" buttons directly to Yelp's interface
• Store blocked restaurants locally or sync them across devices
• Visually indicate when results have been filtered

Technically, this could work by modifying Yelp's webpage to hide certain listings based on stored identifiers. The extension would need to adapt to Yelp's website structure while maintaining good performance, even with long block lists.

Potential Benefits and Considerations

Regular Yelp users—especially those with dietary restrictions or strong local preferences—might find this helpful for streamlining their search process. For the platform itself, while more relevant results could theoretically increase engagement, there might be concerns about modifying Yelp's content display.

An initial version could focus on basic blocking functionality with local storage, while later updates might add features like:

• Account-based syncing across devices
• Advanced filtering by cuisine type or price range
• Options to share or import block lists

Existing Alternatives and Differentiation

While Yelp offers filters for categories like price or cuisine, it doesn't allow permanent blocking of specific businesses. General-purpose tools like ad blockers could technically hide elements but aren't designed for this specific use case. Unlike bookmarking apps that focus on saving favorites, this approach would reduce clutter by removing unwanted options entirely.

Before development, key questions would need exploration—like how to handle Yelp's changing interface, whether the platform would allow such modifications, and how to maintain performance with extensive block lists. Testing with prototypes and gathering user feedback could help validate both the concept and technical approach.