Free on iOS · Rooted in the DMV & NYC
Find businesses where people like you feel welcome.
Stars tell you most people liked a place. GreenBook shows you how people who share your background felt there, with five or six quick sliders instead of one star.
54,000+ businesses across the DMV and NYC · Free on iOS
Watch
Five-star reviews are incomplete.
GreenBook’s founder, David Obajemu, on the 1936 guide the app is named for, how a Leaflet works, and why a rating should depend on who’s asking.
Read the transcript (30-second cut)
Five-star reviews are incomplete. A rating should depend on who is asking. The way it works is that you are asked five to six questions based on a slider. All you have to do is tap it once and you see your demographics. Tap it once more and you go back to all.
The brain of Leaflets is essentially just math, but this math is informed from peer-reviewed journals on bias. Download GreenBook on iOS today.
Green Book cover: The New York Public Library, public domain. Research shown: Altenburger & Ho (JITE 2019), Jahanbakhsh et al. (CHI 2020), Ma et al. (JMIS 2013).
Tap the leaf
Same place. Two answers.
Set your background once. The leaf opens on what people who share it think, and one tap shows everyone. When the two numbers differ, that gap is worth knowing.
Leave a Leaflet
Leaflets, not stars.
A Leaflet is five or six short questions, written for the kind of place, answered with a slider.
Questions written for the place.
A salon asks about your hair texture. A café asks if you could stay and linger. A shop asks if you could browse without being followed.
Sliders, not stars.
Every answer runs from 0 to 10 in steps of 0.1, with both ends labeled in plain words.
Five scores, not one.
Quality, Atmosphere, Service, Belonging and Value. Belonging is on every Leaflet.
It takes about 30 seconds, and a note is optional.
Where we are
Rooted in the DMV & NYC. Expanding every day.
54,000+ businesses across DC, Maryland, Virginia and New York City, in 7 categories from restaurants to auto shops.
Early days, on purpose: we’re building density one neighborhood at a time.
Don’t see a spot? Request it in the app. Don’t see your city yet? Tell us where to grow next.
The DMV
- U Street, Washington, DC
- Anacostia, Washington, DC
- The Wharf, Washington, DC
- Silver Spring, Maryland
- Baltimore, Maryland
- Frederick, Maryland
- Arlington, Virginia
- Alexandria, Virginia
- Tysons, Virginia
New York City
- Harlem, Manhattan
- Washington Heights, Manhattan
- East Village, Manhattan
- Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn
- Fort Greene, Brooklyn
- Flatbush, Brooklyn
- Canarsie, Brooklyn
- Jamaica, Queens
- Cambria Heights, Queens
Why the name
Why GreenBook?
In 1936, Victor Hugo Green, a postal worker from Harlem, published the first Green Book. Until 1966, it told Black travelers which hotels, restaurants, beauty parlors and gas stations would serve them.
Every listing answered one question: will I be welcome there? We named the app after it because that question still deserves a real answer.
“There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published.”
For business owners
You’re probably already listed.
Claiming your page is free. Email us your business name and we’ll confirm it’s you with a call to your listed number, usually within 2 business days.
Then the page is yours: add photos, hours, your website and Instagram, see your Leaflets broken down by Quality, Atmosphere, Service, Belonging and Value, and share your score with your regulars.
No ads. No paid placements. Just what your customers say.
Dimension Breakdown
Average score across all Leaflets
- Quality8.6
- Atmosphere7.9
- Service8.8
- Belonging9.1
- Value7.2
Investors & partners
Back it. Partner on it. Pressure-test it.
GreenBook is early and growing. If you’re an investor, an operator or a community partner and want in early, we’d love to talk. The scoring method is patent pending.
Leave your first Leaflet.
Find businesses where people like you feel welcome.