NearEats
Open now — or closing in 25 minutes
Not just today's hours. NearEats reads the clock and tells you what's actually open, and warns you when a place is about to shut before you walk there.
Find somewhere good to eat,
wherever you land.
Every restaurant, cafe and bar around you — with the details that actually decide it: what's open right now, whether they do vegan or halal, whether you can get in without steps, and how far the walk is.
- $1.99 once, yours forever
- No account, no ads
- Works in any city
- 3categories: restaurants, cafes, bars
- 2map sources, merged into one list
- 49languages
- 0accounts, ads or data sold
What is NearEats?
NearEats is an iPhone app that finds restaurants, cafes and bars near you, and shows what actually decides where you go: whether a place is open right now, whether it does vegan, halal, kosher or gluten-free, whether you can get in without steps, how long the walk really is, and whether it takes cards. It costs $1.99 once, needs no account, and works in any city.
How do I find restaurants near me?
Open NearEats and allow location access. It shows every restaurant, cafe and bar around you on a map and a synced list, sorted by distance, with the opening status and walking time on each card. There is no search to type and no account to create.
How do I find vegan or halal food near me?
Diet options appear as badges on the venue card itself — vegan, vegetarian, halal, kosher, gluten-free, dairy-free and organic — so you can rule places out from the list rather than reading a menu at the door.
How do I find somewhere open late near me?
Tap the open-late filter. It narrows the list to venues still serving, and each card shows whether a place is open now or closing shortly, checked against the current time rather than a printed timetable.
Features
The bit other map apps leave you guessing
A pin on a map tells you a restaurant exists. It doesn't tell you whether it's open, whether they can feed you, or whether you can get through the door.
Two map sources, one clean list
OpenStreetMap and Apple Maps, merged. A place that exists in both appears once, keeping the best details from each — broad coverage without seeing everything twice.
Vegan, halal, kosher, gluten-free
Diet options are on the card, not buried three taps down — so you know before you walk over whether there is anything on the menu for you.
Step-free access, up front
Wheelchair access and accessible toilets are shown on the venue, alongside the honest negatives — a red badge when a place is not accessible, so it never wastes your trip.
Can't decide? Tap Surprise me
One tap picks a place for you and drops you on it. The cure for standing on a corner with three hungry people and no decision.
Cash-only warnings
The gotchas other directories bury: cash only, no card, no step-free entrance. Better to know from the pavement than at the till.
- Awards — Michelin and Bib Gourmand badges where a venue has one
- Real walking time — route-accurate, not straight-line distance
- Open-late filter — for the 11pm question most map apps answer badly
- Search & filters — narrow by name, cuisine or feature
- One-tap directions — plus website and phone, right on the venue
- Been-here journal — mark the ones worth coming back to
- Amenities — outdoor seating, Wi-Fi, dog-friendly, family-friendly, takeaway
- 49 languages — the app speaks the language your phone does
How it works
Three steps, and none of them is signing up.
-
1 Open it
Everything nearby, straight away
No account, no sign-up, no onboarding to sit through. Allow location and the map fills with what's around you — in your home city or one you landed in an hour ago.
-
2 Narrow it down
Rule places out before you walk
Switch between restaurants, cafes and bars. Filter to open now, or open late. Check the diet, access and amenity badges — the reasons you'd cross a place off.
-
3 Go
Directions, one tap away
Pick your place and NearEats hands you turn-by-turn directions, the website and the phone number. Then it gets out of the way.
Right now
The only question that matters at 9pm: is it open?
Plenty of apps will show you a restaurant. Far fewer will tell you it stops serving in twenty minutes.
- Open now, checked against the clockNot "Mon–Sun 08:00–22:00" for you to work out. NearEats reads today's hours and tells you the answer.
- "Closes in 25 min" warningsThe state between open and closed, which is the one that ruins the evening.
- An open-late filterOne tap narrows the list to the places that will still be serving when you get there.
- Real walking timeRoute-accurate, not straight-line distance — so "5 min walk" means five minutes of walking.
Diet & access
Know before you walk, not at the door
If you're coeliac, halal, kosher, vegan, or you use a wheelchair, "there's a restaurant over there" isn't information. This is.
- Diet, on the cardVegan, vegetarian, halal, kosher, gluten-free, dairy-free and organic — visible in the list, not three taps down.
- Step-free access and accessible toiletsShown per venue, so a trip out isn't a gamble on someone's front step.
- The honest negatives, firstCash only and not wheelchair accessible are shown in red, ahead of the good news. A directory that only tells you the positives is wasting your time.
The badges you'll actually see, in the app's own colours:
- Cash only
- Not wheelchair accessible
- Open now
- Closes in 25 min
- Vegan
- Halal
- Kosher
- Gluten-free
- Outdoor seating
- Dog-friendly
- Wi-Fi
- Wheelchair accessible
- Bib Gourmand
Warnings come first, ahead of the good news — the same order the app uses.
Why not just wander?
Standing on the street vs. opening NearEats
| Wandering | With NearEats | |
|---|---|---|
| Is it open? | Walk there and find out | Open now, or closes in 25 min |
| Anything I can eat? | Read the menu in the window | Vegan, halal, kosher, gluten-free on the card |
| Can I get in? | Discover the step at the door | Step-free access shown up front |
| How far is it really? | "It looked close on the map" | Route-accurate walking time |
| Do they take cards? | Find out at the till | A red "cash only" badge |
| Nobody can decide | Twenty more minutes of this | Tap Surprise me |
| What it costs you | Time, and the odd wasted evening | $1.99, once |
Who it's for
For anyone who's stood outside a closed restaurant
Different reasons, same moment: you need to know something about a place before you walk to it.
The one who just landed
New city, no bearings, and the hotel's recommendation is the hotel's recommendation. Open the app and the neighbourhood explains itself — no account, no signal-hungry sign-up.
TravelThe one who can't eat everything
Coeliac, halal, kosher, vegan, dairy-free. You've had the conversation at the door too many times. Here the answer is on the card before you set off.
Dietary needsThe one checking for a step
A meal out shouldn't hinge on whether someone remembered to mention the entrance. Step-free access and accessible toilets are shown per venue — and so is their absence.
AccessibilityThe one hunting a decent coffee
Not a chain, not the first place with a sign. Switch to Cafes, filter to open now, and look for outdoor seating and Wi-Fi before you commit.
CafesThe group that can't decide
Four people, four opinions, and everyone's getting hungrier. Switch to Bars, or just tap Surprise me and let the app take the blame.
Nights outThe one who's had enough of apps
No account, no email, no ads bidding for the top of your list. You bought it once, it works, and nothing about you is sold to anyone. What the app does collect is written down plainly.
Privacy
Pricing
$1.99, once. Then it's yours.
Less than the coffee you're about to go and find. No subscription, no upgrade nagging you from inside the app, nothing to cancel later.
One-time purchase
NearEats
$1.99
Paid once on the App Store. Every feature, no gates.
- Restaurants, cafes and bars — all three, all included
- Every filter, badge and detail. Nothing held back for a "Pro" tier
- No ads. Nobody pays to be at the top of your list
- No account, no email, nothing sold to anyone
- Re-download it on any of your devices, and share it through Family Sharing
- 49 languages
Prices are set per App Store region and shown in your local currency at checkout.
From the blog
Eating well somewhere you don't know yet
Short, practical reads on finding good food in an unfamiliar city, ordering with dietary requirements, and knowing where to go before you set off.
Eating out with a toddler: what actually makes a place workable
The high chair is a red herring. A restaurant fails a toddler for reasons you can almost all check before you sit down — and the one that matters most is not on the menu.
Read it →
Eating gluten-free abroad: what to check before you sit down
Gluten-free travel fails less often than you'd expect. The places that fail you are usually predictable — here is how to spot them before the food arrives.
Read it →
Cash-only restaurants: where they are and how to not get caught out
The card declines, the queue behind you is not amused, and the server has no idea what is going on. The cash-only surprise is rare enough to feel personal — and easy to avoid if you check one thing before you walk in.
Read it →
FAQ
Fair questions
Why does it cost anything, if it's built on open map data?
Because the alternative is worse. An app like this pays for itself either by charging you once, or by selling ads, selling your location, or charging restaurants for placement. We picked the first one. $1.99 buys the whole app, forever, and nobody has any reason to reorder your list.
Where does the information come from?
OpenStreetMap and Apple Maps. NearEats queries both and merges them, so a venue that exists in both sources appears once, keeping the best details from each. OpenStreetMap is where the rich stuff lives — opening hours, diet options, wheelchair access, amenities — because real people map it.
Why are there no reviews, ratings or photos?
Because no open data source provides them honestly, and we would rather show you nothing than show you something invented. NearEats is a directory, not a review platform: it tells you the facts about a place — hours, diet, access, amenities, awards, how far it is — and leaves the judgement to you.
What happens to my location?
It stays on your phone. There is no account and no NearEats server holding your places, and your saved and visited venues never leave the device. To find what's nearby the app sends a coordinate and a radius to OpenStreetMap and Apple Maps, as any map app must. Anonymous analytics go to PostHog, set out in the privacy policy.
Does it work abroad?
Yes — that's the case it was built for. There is nothing to set up on arrival and no region to pick; it works wherever OpenStreetMap and Apple Maps have coverage, which is most places you'd land. The app itself is available in 49 languages.
Is it just restaurants?
No — restaurants, cafes and bars, switched with a single control. Cafes cover the coffee-and-Wi-Fi question, bars the evening one, including microbreweries, craft-beer places and the venues that stay open late. Each category carries the same badges, so diet and access information is there whichever you browse.
How accurate are the opening hours?
As good as the map data, which is usually very good and occasionally stale — a venue can change its hours faster than anyone updates the map. NearEats shows what the data says, read against the current time, and names the source. For a special trip, the venue's phone number is one tap away.
What do I need to run it?
An iPhone running iOS 18 or later, and location access so it knows what "nearby" means. That is the lot: no account, no sign-up, no subscription and no ongoing cost. The app is a one-time $1.99 purchase and works in any city with map coverage, in 49 languages.
You're going to be hungry somewhere unfamiliar again.
Next time, know what's open, what they can cook for you and whether you can get through the door — before you start walking.
$1.99 one-time purchase · iPhone, iOS 18 or later · No account, no ads, nothing sold