OpenStreetMap
For those who aren’t aware, inside some OSM editors is something called the “Name Suggestion Index” or NSI, and this lets mappers use a consistent name / brand across the map, for places such as a McDonald’s, or a Supermarket.
Many people may have used the NSI (https://nsi.guide) without even realising it - if you added a node or way and started to type, for example “Burger King”, and had the editor suggest to you that you select “Burger King” with the official logo on screen, this was the NSI at work.
The NSI is maintained over on GitHub, and suggestible names don’t all exist on the list automatically, they have to be added to the index.
One such suggestion I have made to the group of maintainers is adding brand names for Supermarket Cafe’s within the UK, including Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s, M&S and Morrisons, as I believe many of the supermarkets include a cafe inside, and having them mapped as a node (amenity:cafe) within each store would be beneficial to OSM and OSM users. All these supermarkets have a separate NSI entry for their respective petrol stations, and I think the same should be true for their cafe’s
Not all stores have a cafe, and of those that do, not all of them follow the same opening hours as the main store, which is another reason I think adding them separately would be beneficial.
One question that has arisen is if this is a suitable addition to the NSI, and if the name tag should be that of the Supermarkets name, eg “Asda Cafe”, or if it should be something else, as the cafe itself is inside the Supermarket, and often physical signage within the store simply reads “cafe”, which, while might be the correct “name” to give, could be considered too generic, and actually flags an error within iD.
I’d be keen to hear anyone else’s views on whether Supermarket Cafe’s should exist individually within OSM, and if so, should they have the name that matches the supermarket itself, eg “Asda Cafe”, or be left blank, or as something else?
Discussion
Comment from trigpoint on 9 January 2020 at 19:59
An interesting question and I must admit its not something that I have thought of mapping, too much like the works canteen to consider in my own time hence a bit off my radar.
In the case of a cafeteria operated by the shop, I would tend to just place an unnamed node within the building in the right sort of place. I would not use a name such as ASDA Cafe.
One of my local Sainsburys has a Starbucks, I have mapped that as a Starbucks as I do not associate it with Sainsburys.
Comment from Rovastar on 10 January 2020 at 12:54
I often add these as a seperate note and I think in general i use ‘supermarket’ cafe as the name. Now some may say they don’t have a name often displayed but I’m all for having a name.
I suppose it could/should be extended to other retailers that often have these own branded cafes in their stores. M&S, Debenhams, Ikea, Costco, etc
Comment from saintam1 on 11 January 2020 at 08:29
I would map the cafe separately from the store, yes.
For the name I would use whatever the signage at the entrance to the cafe says. If it says “Sainsbury’s Cafe”, use that, if it just says “Café”, use that, if there’s no sign, I would put no name. We mappers will always find grounds to debate what the exact name of an object should be, so “whatever the sign says” is a good rule of thumb I think, it makes sense, it’s generally unambiguous, and applies pretty much everywhere.
You can add an operator=Asda tag to tie the cafe to its “mother store” independently of the name.
Just another mapper’s perspective :)
Comment from Anna_AG on 13 January 2020 at 00:46
Good observation : quite a lot of the Sainsburys now have an Argos in them also