How PlayPatio finds restaurants with playgrounds in Texas

PlayPatio is a free Texas directory of restaurants, cafés, breweries, indoor play, and parks where kids can actually play while adults eat. It is not a live inspection service. Venue records live in a static data file for the MVP — there is no live database and no paid Google Places crawl.

Most public-park playgrounds start as OpenStreetMap Overpass queries (leisure=playground and a few tagged amenities). OSM is volunteer-mapped, so names, fences, and bathrooms can be wrong or out of date. Restaurant play yards are rarely tagged on the map. That is why listings such as Hat Creek Burger Co. — Westlake / Austin, Lupe Tortilla — Katy (Hwy 6), and The Cove in San Antonio are curated by hand or sent in through the public suggest-a-place form instead of imported from OSM.

Submissions are stored for review; they do not go live automatically. Amenity flags — high chairs, changing tables, toddler zones, parent visibility 1–5 — are directory signals from OSM tags, owner sites, or a submitter. We do not claim a mystery-shopper visit, health-department check, or weekly phone call to every venue.

Use metro and category hubs when you need “where can we eat and play in this city.” Use a venue page when you need a direct answer for one place: playground kind, toddler zone, and whether parents can see the play area from the table. Confirm hours and playground status on-site; Texas venues change seasonally.