I found that if I search Google Maps for a specific restaurant, it assumes I must just be hungry in general. Just now, I looked for A&W and also got results for Tim Hortons, Popeyes and McDonald's.

Apple Maps never does that. Still, I usually use Google as I want an accurate idea of whether a business is actually open and what its hours are.

I just tried "McDonalds" and only got 50 straight McDonalds results. "Burger King" nets 23 Burger Kings, one "Spareribs King" and one "Burger Chicken King". Gotta love inconsistent experiences between customers / regions.

Also, Apple is gearing up to stuff ads (cough "sponsored results" cough) into Maps, at which point it will probably start suffering the same problem..

Try searching for a type of food that has a place in it's name, like "Nashville hot chicken". It'll either center the map on Nashville, TN, and show you results for "hot chicken", or sometimes will zoom all the way out and show you results for "hot chicken" in both where the map was originally centered and in Nashville, TN.

Gmaps always zooms out when I search. No idea of that happens for others or not.