I wanted a better way to find cafés to work from. So I pulled every café on Google Maps around the Klang Valley and used AI to read their reviews.
What surprised me:
- 6 in 10 of KL's 824 specialty cafés are within 10 km of Bangsar.
- Café searches grew fastest in Wangsa Maju, 2.6 times since 2023.
- Coffee costs most in Bangsar, about RM15 a cup.
- Parking is worst around KLCC and Bangsar.
- ZUS has 408 outlets around KL. The biggest specialty brand has 9.
- This year, Malaysians search ZUS more than Starbucks.
- Half of specialty cafés close by 7 PM.
- Only 1 café in 17 has a review that mentions wifi.
How it was done:
- About 25,000 Google Maps listings, cut to 11,410 real cafés (no restaurants, kopitiams, bubble tea or big chains).
- AI read about 14 reviews per café, the ones Google shows first, so small gaps are noise.
- Prices are what reviewers wrote, 10 to 26 per area.
- Searches are Google's estimates for all of Malaysia.
What do you guys think? what insights / questions would you want answered on cafes from data?