Data sources and corrections

Where our data comes from

Sources

• Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Active Sales Tax Permit Holders. Published on the Texas Open Data Portal and marked public domain. It lists each business location with a sales-tax permit, including its name, address, industry code, permit date, planned first-sale date, and the mailing address of the company that holds the permit.
• Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission license list. Also on the Texas Open Data Portal. We use it to show liquor license status.

How often it updates

The Comptroller adds new permits to its public list once a week, usually early Saturday morning. The TABC list changes daily. We check both every day, and each Monday list covers the restaurants that appeared since the last one.

What we leave out

• Home addresses of individual owners, food trucks and online-only sellers. When an individual rather than a company holds the permit, we leave out their name and mailing address.
• Personal information about consumers. Our reports cover businesses.

How we label records

• "Opening soon" and "Just opened" come from the first-sale date the owner gave the state. That date is the owner's estimate, not a confirmed opening date.
• "Existing restaurant, new owner or permit" means the state's list of active permits already has an older permit for the same restaurant at that address (a new owner, or the same owner re-registering), or the first-sale date is more than 60 days old. "Earlier restaurant here" shows another restaurant's older permit at the same address; an old permit can stay active for a while after a restaurant closes or changes hands.
• "Chain", "Local group" and "Independent" are our estimates from matching names across Texas restaurant permits.
• Liquor license status reflects the TABC list on the day we build the report.

Corrections and removal

If you own or manage a business that appears in our reports and something is wrong, email hello@earlydoordata.com with the business name and address. We'll correct the record, or remove it from future reports, within 5 business days.