The data is the key though. How did they effectively scrape the data? Does every restaurant have a website? I bet half rely on Google Maps. So IMHO you are too optimistic because regularly and effectively getting the data is the hard part, not the model.

This right here. Every time I see these types of articles, I jump straight to the chapter regarding data, and it usually a single line of "I scraped the data", sometimes with explanation, most times not.

In this case it seems like she used their API to get the data. But as she notes, scraping can quickly mean having to spend money. And that's where the scraping dream ends for many people - if they have to spend money in any way, shape, or form, it's a non-starter.