Illinois Restaurant Leads Scraper (Google Maps)

Turn Google Maps into a clean, ready-to-use dataset of Illinois restaurants. Point it at any city (or use the built-in list of 39 major Illinois cities) and get names, ratings, review counts, categories, full addresses, phone numbers, and websites — structured and exportable in one click.

No Google API key, no per-request billing surprises, no manual copy-pasting from Maps tabs.

Why use this Actor

• Statewide coverage out of the box. Ships with a curated list of Illinois's 39 most populous cities — Chicago, Aurora, Naperville, Springfield, Rockford, Peoria, and more — so you get broad coverage with zero configuration.
• Real contact data, not just pins. Opens each listing's detail page to pull phone number and website alongside the standard rating/review/category fields most scrapers stop at.
• Built for lead lists. Output maps cleanly onto a spreadsheet: one row per restaurant, consistent columns, ready for CRM import or a cold-outreach list.
• Tunable cost vs. depth. Switch off contact-detail scraping for a near-instant, low-cost pass when you only need names and ratings (e.g. market sizing), or turn it on for full sales-ready records.
• No fragile manual setup. Runs entirely on Apify's infrastructure with built-in proxy handling — you don't manage browsers, IPs, or rate limits.

What you get

Field	Description
name	Restaurant name
city	The city/town searched (from your input list)
category	Google's listing category, e.g. "Italian restaurant", "Gastropub"
rating	Average star rating (0–5)
reviewsCount	Number of Google reviews
priceLevel	Price indicator ($–$$$$) when available
address	Full street address
phone	Phone number
website	Business website
googleMapsUrl	Direct link back to the Google Maps listing

Input options

Option	Default	What it does
searchTerm	restaurants	The Google Maps search query, e.g. pizza, vegan restaurants, sports bars
cities	39 major IL cities	Which cities/towns to search — replace with your own list to focus on a region
maxPlacesPerCity	10	Cap on listings collected per city
maxCities	1	Cap on how many cities from the list to run — defaults to a fast 1-city smoke test; raise it (or clear it) to cover more cities
scrapeContactDetails	true	true = visit each listing for phone/website/address (higher quality, more page loads). false = fast feed-only pass (name/rating/category only)
maxConcurrency	5	Parallel browser pages — raise for speed, lower to control resource use

Use cases

• Sales & lead generation — build a call list of restaurants in a target city or across the whole state.
• Market research — gauge restaurant density, categories, and average ratings by city before entering a market.
• Local SEO / marketing agencies — audit a client's competitive set (ratings, review counts, categories) in their service area.
• Delivery & POS platform expansion — identify unlisted or under-served restaurants in a new territory.

Example output

{
  "name": "The Gage",
  "city": "Chicago, IL",
  "category": "American restaurant",
  "priceLevel": null,
  "rating": 4.6,
  "reviewsCount": 5257,
  "address": "24 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60603",
  "phone": "(312) 372-4243",
  "website": "thegagechicago.com",
  "googleMapsUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Gage/..."
}

Results are available as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS directly from the Actor's dataset — no extra transformation step needed.

Cost estimate

Pricing follows standard Apify compute-unit billing (no separate per-result fee). As a reference point, a full run across all 39 default cities at 30 places/city (~1,100 restaurants) with contact-detail scraping enabled typically costs a few dollars in compute units — comfortably within the free plan's monthly credit for occasional use. Disable scrapeContactDetails for a much cheaper, faster pass when full contact info isn't needed.

FAQ

Does this need a Google API key? No. It reads Google Maps' public search results directly — no API key, no Google Cloud billing account.

Can I search outside Illinois? Yes. The cities input accepts any city/region string (e.g. "Austin, TX"); the Illinois list is just the default.

Why is priceLevel sometimes empty? Google doesn't expose a price indicator for every listing, especially outside dense downtown areas — this is a Google data gap, not a scraper limitation.

Will running this get my IP blocked? The Actor runs through Apify's infrastructure, not your own IP.