Yelp MCP Server

<!-- mcp-name: com.hasdata/yelp -->

A hosted Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that gives Claude, Cursor, Windsurf and any other MCP client three read-only Yelp tools. Search businesses by keyword and location, read one business in full, and page through its complete review feed, all as structured JSON, with no Yelp Fusion key and nothing to host.

It reads public Yelp pages that a signed-out visitor can see, on any of the 41 regional domains.

1,000 free credits every month, no card required, which is 100 Yelp calls at the 10-credit rate.

https://mcp.hasdata.com/mcp?apis=yelp

• Prompts and resources

Contents

• What you need
• Quick start
• Example prompts
• Tools
• Errors and failure paths
• Pricing, free tier and limits
• Tool selection
• How it compares
• FAQ
• HasData links
• Development
• Contributing
• License

What you need

An MCP client and a HasData API key from the dashboard, free to create with no card, and the free tier covers about 100 calls a month at the 10-credit rate. This is a remote server, so the simplest path is a URL and an x-api-key header, with no container to run. A client that only speaks stdio reaches it through a thin launcher, published as @hasdata/yelp-mcp on npm and hasdata-yelp-mcp on PyPI, shown below.

Quick start

The server URL is the same for every client. We run it hands-on in Claude Code and Claude Desktop. The other blocks follow each client's own documented format for a remote server.

| Field | Value | | :--- | :--- | | URL | https://mcp.hasdata.com/mcp?apis=yelp | | Transport | HTTP, streamable | | Auth header | x-api-key: HASDATA_API_KEY |

Clients with OAuth support can add the same URL as a connector and sign in without putting a key in a config file.

<details> <summary><b>Claude Code</b></summary>

claude mcp add --transport http yelp "https://mcp.hasdata.com/mcp?apis=yelp" \
  --header "x-api-key: HASDATA_API_KEY"

</details> <details> <summary><b>Claude Desktop</b></summary>

Settings, then Connectors, then Add custom connector, then paste https://mcp.hasdata.com/mcp?apis=yelp and sign in.

For the config-file route, Claude Desktop loads only local (stdio) servers, so it reaches a remote server through a stdio launcher. The @hasdata/yelp-mcp package is that launcher, and it reads the key from the environment. Add this to claude_desktop_config.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yelp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@hasdata/yelp-mcp"],
      "env": { "HASDATA_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

For Python instead of Node, swap the launcher for the PyPI package, which uvx runs without a manual install:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yelp": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["hasdata-yelp-mcp"],
      "env": { "HASDATA_API_KEY": "YOUR_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

</details> <details> <summary><b>Cursor</b></summary>

~/.cursor/mcp.json for every project, or .cursor/mcp.json for one:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yelp": {
      "url": "https://mcp.hasdata.com/mcp?apis=yelp",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "HASDATA_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

</details> <details> <summary><b>Windsurf</b></summary>

~/.codeium/windsurf/mcp_config.json. Windsurf calls the field serverUrl, not url:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "yelp": {
      "serverUrl": "https://mcp.hasdata.com/mcp?apis=yelp",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "HASDATA_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

</details> <details> <summary><b>VS Code</b></summary>

.vscode/mcp.json in the workspace:

{
  "servers": {
    "yelp": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.hasdata.com/mcp?apis=yelp",
      "headers": { "x-api-key": "HASDATA_API_KEY" }
    }
  }
}

</details>

Example prompts

Each of these lands on one tool, or on two in sequence when the second needs an identifier the first returns.

• Find coffee roasteries in Austin, TX and rank them by rating against review count.
• Pull the hours, phone and website for the Yelp business desnudo-coffee-austin.
• Read every one-star and two-star review of this business and group the complaints by theme.
• Which dishes does Yelp list as popular for this place, and what do reviewers say about them?
• Compare the rating distribution of these three competitors in the same neighborhood.
• Show me the reviews Yelp does not recommend for this business and how they differ from the recommended ones.

A prompt that names a business rather than a Yelp ID takes two calls, one search to resolve the ID and one place or reviews lookup to read it. The search tool returns both placeId and placeAlias, and either one works as the placeId argument to the place tool.

Tools

| Tool | What it returns | | --- | --- | | hasdata_yelp_place_getPlaceDetails | Name, address, phone, website, price range, categories, overall rating, review count, hours, amenities, photos, and highlighted reviews. 10 credits a call | | hasdata_yelp_reviews_getPlaceReviews | Fetches the review feed of a single Yelp business by Yelp ID, with sorting (relevance, date, rating, elites), filtering by star rating, language and free-text query, and…. 10 credits a call | | hasdata_yelp_search_getSearchResults | A ranked list of businesses with Yelp alias/ID, name, categories, rating, review count, price tier, neighborhood, and thumbnail. 10 credits a call |

Three tools, 10 credits per successful call. Every tool accepts domain to switch country, one of 41 values, from www.yelp.com through the European, Asian and Latin American sites, including the language-specific variants such as fr.yelp.ca and zh.yelp.com.hk.

Get Yelp search results

hasdata_yelp_search_getSearchResults

A page of businesses for a keyword in a place.

| Parameter | Type | Required | Notes | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | keyword | string | yes | What to search for, such as coffee | | location | string | yes | Where to search, such as Austin, TX | | l | string | | Map bounding box instead of a radius, as g:lon1,lat1,lon2,lat2 | | domain | string | | Yelp site, defaults to www.yelp.com | | start | number | | Result offset, stepping by 10 |

Returns searchInformation with the echoed keyword, location and totalResults, an ads array of paid placements, an organicResults array, and pagination with currentPage, perPage, totalPages, nextPageUrl and otherPagesUrls.

The two result arrays are not the same shape. An organic result carries position and streetAddress, while an ad carries neither and adds phone and a highlights array of the badges Yelp shows advertisers. Merging the arrays without checking which one a business came from turns paid placement into rank.

{
  "position": 2,
  "placeId": "oiJ7QuhhpsEpe9zFTZF0bA",
  "placeAlias": "desnudo-coffee-austin",
  "url": "https://www.yelp.com/biz/desnudo-coffee-austin",
  "title": "Desnudo Coffee",
  "streetAddress": "2505 Webberville Rd, Austin",
  "price": "$$",
  "categories": [{ "title": "Coffee Roasteries", "url": "https://www.yelp.com/search?find_desc=Coffee+Roasteries&find_loc=Austin%2C+TX" }],
  "snippet": "My favorite coffee shop to go to ever! Everyone must go. [[HIGHLIGHT]]Great coffee[[ENDHIGHLIGHT]], great vibes,great customer...",
  "rating": 4.7,
  "reviews": 347,
  "thumbnail": "https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/0nE_IcbRiyxrw3kk2z6owg/ls.jpg",
  "allImagesUrl": "https://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/oiJ7QuhhpsEpe9zFTZF0bA"
}

Get Yelp place details

hasdata_yelp_place_getPlaceDetails

One business in full.

| Parameter | Type | Required | Notes | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | placeId | string | yes | A Yelp ID such as oiJ7QuhhpsEpe9zFTZF0bA, or an alias such as desnudo-coffee-austin | | domain | string | | Yelp site, defaults to www.yelp.com |

Returns a placeResult object with name, url, address, neighborhoods, country, phone, website, price, categories, rating, reviews, isClaimed and isClaimable, an operationHours object holding a week of hours plus today, a features array, a menu object with popularDishes, a faqs array of questions Yelp readers asked and answered, a reviewHighlights array of the phrases Yelp pins to the top of the page, an images array, and businessMap, a static map image URL.

features is the amenities block, and each entry carries a title and an isActive flag, so a false entry is Yelp stating the amenity is absent rather than unknown. That difference matters when you filter, because dropping the false entries and dropping the missing ones are not the same query.

{
  "name": "Desnudo Coffee",
  "url": "https://www.yelp.com/biz/desnudo-coffee-austin",
  "address": "2505 Webberville Rd Austin, TX 78702",
  "neighborhoods": "East Austin",
  "country": "US",
  "phone": "(424) 400-1857",
  "website": "http://www.desnudocoffee.com",
  "price": "$$",
  "categories": ["Coffee Roasteries"],
  "rating": 4.7,
  "reviews": 347,
  "isClaimed": true,
  "isClaimable": false,
  "operationHours": { "hours": [{ "day": "Mon", "hours": ["7:00 AM - 2:00 PM"] }] },
  "features": [
    { "title": "Offers delivery", "isActive": true },
    { "title": "ADA-compliant restroom", "isActive": false }
  ],
  "menu": {
    "section": "Popular Drinks",
    "popularDishes": [{ "name": "Brown Sugar Miso Latte", "rating": 4.7, "reviews": 113, "photos": 71 }]
  }
}

Get Yelp place reviews

hasdata_yelp_reviews_getPlaceReviews

The review feed of one business, in full text, with sorting, filtering and pagination.

| Parameter | Type | Required | Notes | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | placeId | string | yes | The Yelp ID of the business | | domain | string | | Yelp site, defaults to www.yelp.com | | sortBy | string | | relevanceDesc (default), dateDesc, dateAsc, ratingDesc, ratingAsc or elitesDesc | | rating | string | | Keep only these star ratings, such as 5 or 1,2 | | query | string | | Free-text search inside the reviews | | languageCode | string | | Two-letter language of the reviews, defaults to en | | notRecommended | boolean | | Return the feed Yelp filters out instead of the recommended one | | start | number | | Offset, stepping by num | | num | number | | Page size, 49 at most, and 49 by default | | nextPageToken |