Local Champion in New Jersey: Top 3 Questions Explained

Local Champion in New Jersey is a profile title in the Mosey app. You earn it in one town by doing three things there: rate five places, answer three Top 3 questions and make one list. The title measures effort and never opinion, so a blunt review counts as much as a rave. This page walks through each step.

It belongs to the New Jersey food guide for every town, and the US food guides cover the rest of the country.

What is a Local Champion in New Jersey?

A line under your name, worded "Local Champion of" and your town, which also sits beside your name on a rating. You can turn it into a picture to share, with your first name added or left off. The picture shows the title and nothing else, so it contains no result and no opinion about any place. It is a small badge of effort, and people use it to say they have been paying attention to the food of one corner of the state. It carries no discount, prize or reward, and a New Jersey business cannot ask for one. Move from the shore to a campus town and you begin again, which seems fair, since knowing a place takes time.

How do you earn the title?

All three actions happen in one town, in any order. A weekend at a shore house, a semester on a campus or a year in a commuter suburb is enough time. The app is not judging your taste. It checks that you rated five places, answered three of the questions and made a list, and that is all. A quiet town with few raters is a fine place to start. Plan it like a small project: rate a bakery on Saturday, a diner on Sunday, a pizza place on a weeknight and two more over the next week, then answer three of them over your next few visits. Make the list last, once you know which places you want to remember. The whole thing can take a few weeks of ordinary eating, and nothing about it costs a penny.

What are the Top 3 questions and where do the answers go?

One question on each visit to the app, such as where the best coffee, restaurant or brunch is. You pick up to three places and rank them, and number 1 is your favorite. The questions include coffee, pizza, burger, breakfast, pastries, date night, Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Indian, barbecue, bagels, sushi and value. You can skip a question until you have a view, but a skip does not count. Each question takes a minute or two, and the next one waits for a visit at least four hours later. Answering three is what counts toward the title, and you can come back for the others whenever you like.

No page here says what a New Jersey town picked. The questions are an invitation to say what you think.

Where do your Top 3 answers go?

Into one private Mosey list per town, named "My" and the town and "top 3s", with a section for each question. It is kept in step with your answers, so a change shows up there. Nobody else sees it unless you choose to share a picture of your title. You can reorder picks, replace one or leave a question empty.

Which New Jersey towns can use Top 3 and the title?

Top 3 and the title work in a place the app knows, and the app is built so towns as well as cities can be used. If your town is small, Best in town is the easier first step, because its questions take a minute each. Use the town's name when you ask, and the app will tell you what it can do.

How do you make a list that counts?

Give it a purpose and a place: the shore weekend, the campus visit, the commuter lunch. Add the places with a note on why each belongs. You can invite friends, who can add their own, and choose whether the list is private or public. If you have rated three or more places that share a tag, the app can offer to turn them into a list with every place ticked.

How does the title sit with badges and friends?

They are separate and they work together. Badges climb by kind of place, starting at five different places in a category. Friends can follow you, tag you at the table and add their own rating of the same meal. A title beside a badge tells a reader you have eaten widely and locally. If you share your title as a picture, you can add your first name or leave it off. The card shows the title and nothing about any place, so there is no result to read from it, only a sign that someone put in the work.

Where next in New Jersey?

The Best in town guide explains the quick questions that make a good first step, and the tags guide explains how to leave clues. The Hoboken restaurants guide is a good town to start in.

How this works in the app: Local Champion and Top 3.

Ready to try it? Take the Mosey app to five New Jersey tables, answer three of the questions when you get home and put your favorites in a list.