How to Scrape Yelp Business Listings in Node.js

A minimal Node.js example that scrapes Yelp business listings by calling the Yelp Business Scraper Apify actor. You don't build a scraper from scratch here — the actor handles the crawling, parsing, and anti-blocking, and you just call it and read the results.

What this example does

• Calls the piotrv1001/yelp-business-scraper Apify actor
• Passes a search input (a search term and location)
• Waits for the run to finish
• Fetches the results from the run's dataset
• Prints each business listing to the console

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or newer
• An Apify account (free tier works)
• Your Apify API token — find it in the Apify Console

Installation

npm install

Environment setup

Copy the example env file and add your Apify API token:

cp .env.example .env

Then edit .env:

APIFY_TOKEN=your_apify_token_here

Usage

npm start

Code example

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
import 'dotenv/config';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Set APIFY_TOKEN in your .env file (copy .env.example to get started)
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN,
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "search": "Sushi",
    "location": "New York, NY"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("piotrv1001/yelp-business-scraper").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

Example output

See sample-output.json for a full example of what the actor returns. Each business listing includes key fields such as:

• name, alias, url — business identity and Yelp page
• rating, reviewCount, reviewCountText — review metrics
• priceRange, categories, neighborhood — classification
• reviewSnippet, thumbnail — a preview review and image
• phone, address, website — contact details
• rank, scrapedAt — result position and timestamp

Use cases

• Build a local restaurant or business directory
• Generate sales leads from businesses in a target city
• Monitor ratings and review counts of competitors
• Enrich a CRM with phone numbers, addresses, and websites
• Power market research on a category or neighborhood

Try the actor on Apify

Open the Yelp Business Scraper on Apify

Related resources

• Blog post: How to Scrape Yelp Business Listings

License

MIT