Local Champion in Pennsylvania: How Top 3 Works

Local Champion in Pennsylvania is a title earned in a single town through three actions: five ratings, three answered Top 3 questions and one list. It describes work done and says nothing about taste, and it comes with no reward of any kind. What follows takes each step in turn.

It sits within the Pennsylvania food guide for every town, and the US food guides cover the rest of the country.

What is the Local Champion in Pennsylvania title?

A short label on your profile that appears next to your name when you rate, worded "Local Champion of" and the town. Share it as a picture if you like, with or without your first name, and keep it private if you prefer. No Pennsylvania business can ask for it, and it brings no discount or prize. It tells a reader only that someone rated, ranked and listed places in one town and knows it a little. The labels are modest on purpose. Nobody is crowned, nobody is ranked against anyone else and the title can be earned in a small town by a person who has eaten there for a single summer. It is a way of saying that you paid attention, and of encouraging others to do the same in the places where they live.

What is the five ratings and one list rule for the title?

Rate five places in the town, which can take a single weekend of Dutch country meals or a semester near a campus. Make one list, public or private, with a note on why each place belongs. The app counts only what you do in that town. If you rate three places in a Dutch country village and two in a college town, you are halfway to two different titles, and neither is finished. Pick one town and finish it. A single weekend in a place with plenty to eat, such as a market, a bakery, a diner, a pizza shop and a farm stand, is enough to rate five different kinds of places. A one-star rating counts as much as a five-star one, because the title never depends on what you say.

What are the Top 3 questions?

The app asks one question on each visit, starting with coffee, restaurant and brunch. For each, you may choose up to three places and put them in order, with number 1 your favorite, or leave it empty until you have a view. Later questions cover pizza, burgers, breakfast, pastries, date night and several cuisines. Answering three is the step that counts toward the title, and a skip does not count.

Where does the private list of answers go?

Into one list kept for the town, named "My" the town and "top 3s", with a section for each question. It stays private unless you share a picture of your title, and it stays in step with your answers. You can reorder picks, replace one or clear a question. Nothing in it is shown as a result for the town, and no page here says what a Pennsylvania town picked. If you move between towns, a new list is kept for each, so your answers for a college town never mix with your answers for a lake city.

Can a small Pennsylvania town earn the title?

The title works in places the app knows, and towns as well as cities are meant to work. If your town is small, answer a few Best in town questions first, since each takes a minute, and rate places as you eat. Use the town's own name. A borough with only a handful of raters is a good place to begin. In a larger city the same title is a smaller gesture, because there are many more places to rate and many more raters. In a small town, five honest ratings and a list change what the next visitor sees. The goal of the title is not to compete but to get people eating, rating and listing where they live.

How does the title sit with badges and friends?

Separately and well. Badges climb by kind of place, starting at five different places in a category, such as bakeries or pizza. Friends can follow you, tag you at the table and add their own rating of the same meal. A title next to a badge tells a reader you have eaten widely and locally, with no claim about taste. The two pieces of recognition measure different things: a badge counts different places of one kind, wherever they are, while the title counts what you did in one town. A person can hold many badges and one title, or the other way round, and neither is a substitute for talking to the people at the counter.

Where next in Pennsylvania?

The Best in town guide explains the quick first step, and the tags guide explains clues that stay on a place. A town to start in is State College.

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

If a Pennsylvania town feels like yours, open the Mosey app, rate five places there, answer three Top 3 questions and build a list to earn the title.