Restaurant searches just got more interactive on Google

Google innovated the way people find their next meal or drinking hole yesterday by adding a carousel of local restaurants to their desktop search listings for keywords such as “Mexican Restaurant Orange County”.

Hotels and other local venues have been given a similar search results makeover. The listings include their Google review score, address, phone number, and photos.

This isn’t brand new for Google. They’ve offered this type of display on other devices such as the iPad and Nexus tablet since late last year. According to their Google+ post:

Give it a go—type or say “mexican restaurants,” or try any similar search for restaurants, bars or hotels. Click on one of the places in the carousel to get more details on it, including its overall review-based score, address and photos. If you want to see more places, click the arrow at the right of the carousel. And you can zoom in on the map that appears below the carousel to restrict your search to only places in a specific area.

No word about whether this will start to apply to retail stores or other types of searches.