Filters out chains, franchises, and national brands from business lists, keeping only independent small businesses. Database of 800+ known chains with multi-layered detection (brand tag, operator tag, name matching, suffix stripping, token matching).
Filters out chains, franchises, and national brands from business lists, keeping only independent small businesses. Database of 800+ known chains with multi-layered detection (brand tag, operator tag, name matching, suffix stripping, token matching).
# Chain & Franchise Filter
## When to use this
- User asks to **find small businesses** and exclude chains
- User wants to **filter out franchises** from OSM/Yelp/Google results
- User needs a **clean list of independent businesses** only
- User asks to "remove big chains" or "only local businesses"
## How it works
Three detection layers, checked in order:
1. **OSM `brand` tag** — if OpenStreetMap says the brand is "Starbucks", it's a chain
2. **OSM `operator` tag** — if the operator is "Yu