✦ Hempstead, counted
Hempstead by the numbers.
Every restaurant we track in Hempstead, Nassau — measured on exactly the same scale as every other street in the region, which is the only way these figures mean anything next to anybody else’s.
The reason this site exists
Star averages can't tell anyone apart
61% of every place we track lands between 4.0 and 4.7 stars. The most common score of all is 4.4 — that badge is worn by 20 different restaurants. A number that everybody has is not information. The Sweet Score spreads the same places across 18 bands instead of one.
How the Sweet Score is built →
Where a street has a specialty
The blocks that are actually known for something
Not folklore — arithmetic. For every neighbourhood we ask what share of its restaurants belong to a category, and compare that to the same category’s share of the whole region. Hempstead is 5.7× more Soul Food than the region average. These are the streets you go to on purpose.
Bars are the multiple against the regional average. Every town →
What people actually order
The 16 dishes reviewers name most
Pulled from what reviewers wrote, not from menus. If a dish shows up here it’s because people kept bringing it up unprompted — which is the only kind of recommendation worth anything.
The question everybody asks
Does spending more get you a better meal?
A little, and then it stops.
| Price | Places | Median Sweet Score | Median ratings |
|---|---|---|---|
| $ | 56 | 36 | 150 |
| $$ | 48 | 24 | 152 |
| $$$ | 1 | 53 | 88 |
The categories
What this region is made of
Every place belongs to every category it earned, so these add up to more than 165. The median column is the honest one — a category with a lot of places and a low median is a category where picking badly is easy.
| Category | Places | Median score | Ratings behind it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deli | 55 | 44 | 5,478 |
| Latin | 25 | 37 | 11,900 |
| Coffee | 14 | 28 | 4,094 |
| Bakery | 13 | 24 | 2,198 |
| Mexican | 12 | 24 | 4,189 |
| Dessert | 12 | 24 | 2,328 |
| American | 11 | 21 | 7,679 |
| Bar & Grill | 10 | 20 | 704 |
| Pizza | 9 | 21 | 1,782 |
| Fast Food | 6 | 18 | 4,998 |
| Seafood | 5 | 23 | 4,609 |
| Chinese | 5 | 14 | 932 |
| Burgers | 4 | 31 | 2,877 |
| Asian | 3 | 13 | 567 |
| Soul Food | 3 | 60 | 1,462 |
| Caribbean | 3 | 58 | 460 |
| Breakfast & Brunch | 3 | 24 | 2,007 |
| Diner | 3 | 49 | 750 |
The list nobody else can build
Loved, and almost nobody knows
High Sweet Score, barely any ratings. These are the places where the people who have been are near-unanimous and the crowd hasn’t arrived. This is what a percentile can find and a star average can’t.
- Baldwin Road DeliHempstead · 30 ratings82
- KJB DeliHempstead · 54 ratings82
- TJ’s Fried Chicken and GyroHempstead · 54 ratings81
- Mercadito 2 TaqueriaHempstead · 100 ratings81
The other end
The most-rated restaurants in the region
Volume, not quality — though the two turn out to be less related than anyone expects. These are the places everybody has an opinion about.
- Pollo CamperoHempstead · 3,021 ratings87
- Mi Tierrita RestaurantHempstead · 2,072 ratings17
- La HaciendaHempstead · 2,060 ratings65
- Popeyes Louisiana KitchenHempstead · 1,983 ratings10
- McDonald'sHempstead · 1,761 ratings11
- Pollos Mario Steak House & SeafoodHempstead · 1,719 ratings18
- Wings 'n ThingsHempstead · 1,119 ratings60
- El AjicitoHempstead · 1,102 ratings50
- El Rancho CatrachoHempstead · 1,041 ratings19
- Taco BellHempstead · 937 ratings24
What the board can do for you
Counted, so you can filter by it
Every one of these is a list. Outdoor seating in August, somewhere that takes a reservation, somewhere that will let the dog sit down too.
- 5Outdoor seating
- 111Deliver
- 156Do takeout
- 29Take reservations
- 28Vegetarian options
- 93Good for kids
- 57Work for groups
- 1Allow dogs