HankRing User Guide

Everything you need to know about finding the food and drinks you crave.

What is HankRing?

HankRing is a community-powered guide for finding specific foods and drinks you're passionate about. A "Hank" is a craving — the dish you keep thinking about, the drink that almost no one makes right. The "Ring" is the community that shares them. HankRing is both: your cravings and your people.

The app helps you answer one question: "Does this place have what I'm looking for?"

Rather than reviewing entire restaurants, HankRing focuses on individual items. You might want to know which bars near you carry great cocktails, which bakeries make flan, or which restaurants serve wood-fired pizza. HankRing finds those places, checks their websites automatically, and lets the community verify and rate them (Figure 3).

Web Checks vs. Community Verification

Web checks are automated scans that happen when the app searches your area. The app visits venue websites and searches for keywords related to your picks. This is a best-effort scan — it works well when restaurants list their menu items online, but it can miss items that aren't on the website.

Community verification is powered by real people. When a user has physically been to a spot and confirms it serves a particular item, that carries more weight than any automated scan. Users can vote thumbs-up or thumbs-down on each category at a spot, building a trust score over time.

Think of it this way: Web checks are a helpful first guess. Community verification is the real answer. Both work together.

First Launch

Here's what happens the first time you open HankRing.

Age Verification

Because the app includes alcohol-related categories (cocktails, bourbon, scotch, etc.), you'll see an age verification screen first. Confirm you're 21+ to proceed. This only appears once.

Welcome Screen

A welcome screen introduces the app's key features. Tap "Let's go!" to enter the app. This screen may reappear when new features are added. You can also revisit it anytime from Profile > What's New.

Your Default Picks

Every new user starts with three default picks to get you exploring right away. You can swap them out anytime from the My Hanks tab.

Location Permission

The app will ask for location access so it can show venues near you. You can also search other cities manually without granting location access.

Tutorials

After the welcome screen, you'll see the Learn HankRing tutorials page. Four guided tutorials walk you through the app:

  1. Setting Up Your Hanks — Choose your picks, customize search terms, and create custom categories
  2. The Spots Tab — Browse, search, and filter verified spots and web search results
  3. The Map — Understand pin types, filters, toggles, and searching new areas
  4. Adding a Spot — Verify and add spots to the community database

Each tutorial uses screenshots and spotlights to highlight features on your actual screen. You can navigate forward and back through steps, exit anytime to return to the tutorials page, and access tutorials later from Profile > Tutorials.

Signing In

You can browse the map, view ghost pins, and explore venues without signing in. But the community features that make HankRing valuable — adding spots, rating them, verifying categories, and logging offerings — all require an account.

Why Sign In?

Signing in unlocks everything that turns HankRing from a map viewer into a community tool:

Without an account, none of these actions are available. If you try to add a spot or rate one without being signed in, the app will prompt you to sign in first and then continue right where you left off.

Sign-In Options

HankRing offers two ways to create an account:

Where to Sign In

You can sign in from two places:

Setting Your Display Name

After your first sign-in, the app asks "What should we call you?" This display name is how you appear in your journal, in your ratings, and in community contributions. You can change it anytime from the Profile tab.

Privacy note: Only your display name is visible to other users. Your email address is never shared with the community.
Our recommendation: Sign in early. Even if you're just browsing at first, being signed in means you can instantly add a spot or verify a category the moment you find something worth contributing.

Your Picks

Your picks are the heart of the app. They determine what shows up on your map, which ghost pins appear, and what the web checker searches for. You can have up to 3 active picks at a time (Figure 1).

The My Hanks tab showing your active picks

Figure 1. The My Hanks tab showing your active picks.

Managing Picks

Go to the My Hanks tab (heart icon) to see your current picks. Each pick card shows the category emoji and name, the search terms used for website scanning, an edit button to customize terms, and a remove button.

Tap "Customize My Hanks" to open the full category grid, where you can browse all available options and swap picks in and out.

Available Categories

HankRing includes 50 curated categories across three groups:

Creating a Custom Category

Can't find what you're looking for? Tap "Create Your Own" at the bottom of the category grid. You'll choose a name, an emoji, and the search terms the app should use. Be specific: "Pupusas" or "Empanadas" works great. Broad terms like "Italian" or "Seafood" are too generic for useful results.

Note: Creating a custom category requires signing in, since custom categories are stored with your account.

Customizing Search Terms

Every category has search terms the app uses when scanning venue websites, and map search terms that control which venues appear as ghost pins. Tap the edit button (slider icon) on any pick card to open the customization page (Figure 2).

The search terms customization page for a category

Figure 2. Customizing the search terms and map queries for a pick.

The customization page lets you adjust two sets of terms:

Tip: Use words that appear on actual restaurant menus. If a category isn't finding matches, try adding terms that chefs and bartenders actually use (e.g., "agave spirit" for mezcal, "custard" for flan).

Tap "Reset to defaults" at any time to restore the original terms for a built-in category.

The Map (Explore Tab)

The Explore tab is the main screen. It shows your location (blue dot), confirmed spots (solid colored pins with category emoji), and ghost pins (suggested spots that haven't been verified yet).

Filter Buttons

The filter bar at the top lets you show or hide different types of pins (Figure 3). Each button displays a count and shows Filter on (green) or Filter off (red) so you always know which pins are visible.

The map showing green ghost pins with filter buttons at the top

Figure 3. Green ghost pins indicate likely matches. Filter buttons at the top show which pin types are visible.

Searching for Spots

HankRing uses a two-stage search to get you results quickly.

Stage 1: Quick Scan

When the map loads or you tap "Search This Area", the app immediately fetches nearby venues from Apple Maps and runs a quick homepage scan on the closest 25. Yellow ghost pins appear on the map. Venues whose websites mention your picks turn green. This usually takes just a few seconds.

Stage 2: Search Wider Area

After the quick scan finishes, a "Search Wider Area?" button appears at the bottom of the map (visible in Figure 3). Tap it to scan the remaining venues in the wider area. This may take a bit longer but can reveal matches that are farther away from the map center.

You don't have to wait. You can interact with the map, tap pins, and explore results from Stage 1 while deciding whether to run Stage 2.

Search This Area

Pan or zoom the map and a "Search This Area" button appears. Tapping it starts a fresh two-stage search for the new area.

Ghost Pins

Ghost pins are unconfirmed suggestions from Apple Maps. They represent places that might have what you're looking for. Both types are visible in Figure 3.

Yellow ghost pins (dashed border, "?" icon) are untested suggestions. The app hasn't confirmed anything about their menu yet.

Green ghost pins (solid border, checkmark icon, gently pulsing) are likely matches. The app found keywords related to your picks on their website during the pre-screen. These are worth checking first.

Tapping a Ghost Pin

When you tap any ghost pin, a detail sheet slides up and the app runs a thorough 3-pass website check:

  1. Pass 1: Downloads the venue's homepage and menu subpages, scanning for your pick's keywords
  2. Pass 2: If Pass 1 didn't find a match, searches the web for your keywords on that venue's domain
  3. Pass 3: (Only for venues with no website) Searches the broader web for your pick at that venue name

While the primary pick is being checked, all your other active picks are scanned against the same cached pages at no extra cost.

The sheet shows category chips indicating what was found, a result banner, and actions to add the spot or dismiss the pin (Figure 4).

Ghost pin detail sheet showing category chips and website check results

Figure 4. A ghost pin detail sheet showing website check results. Green chips confirm a match; gray chips were not found.

Adding a Spot

Adding a spot is the most valuable action you can take in HankRing. It creates a permanent listing that others in the community can find, verify, and rate. You'll need to be signed in to add a spot — if you're not, the app will prompt you.

From a Ghost Pin

Tap a ghost pin on the map, then tap "Yes, add it!" This pre-fills the venue info and any categories the web check confirmed.

From Explore Search

Go to the Spots tab, switch to Explore mode, and search for a venue by name. Tap any result to open the detail sheet, then add it.

The Confirm Spot Screen

After selecting a venue, you'll see a map preview, the venue name and address, and the categories to be added. If the spot already exists in HankRing, your categories merge with the existing entry.

Each category has a specific type of offering you can list. For example, Mezcal asks for brands, Flan asks for styles, Oysters asks for varieties. Offerings are optional but helpful for the community.

First spot celebration: When you add your very first spot, you'll get a congratulatory message. Welcome to the community!

Spot Details

Tap any confirmed spot (the solid colored pins on the map, or any row in the Spots tab) to see its full detail page.

What You'll See

The detail page shows:

Offerings

Each category lists the specific brands, styles, or varieties the community has logged at that venue. You can tap the + button to add more offerings if you've been there and know what they carry.

Actions

Verifying a Spot

Verification is the backbone of HankRing's community trust system. It's quick, it's easy, and it makes the data better for everyone. You'll need to be signed in to verify.

How It Works

On every spot detail page, under each category, you'll see a verification prompt asking the community to confirm whether this venue actually has that item. This is separate from rating — you don't need to score the quality. Just confirm whether it's there.

Why It Matters

A confirmation percentage shows the community consensus on each category at each spot. The more people who verify, the more trustworthy the listing becomes. This is especially important for items that web checks might get wrong — a website might still list an item that was removed from the menu months ago.

Verification earns you +1 point toward your contributor rank for each category you verify.

Quick contribution: Verifying is the fastest way to help. Stopped in for a drink? Tap thumbs-up on mezcal. Didn't see it on the menu? Tap thumbs-down. Takes two seconds.

Rating a Spot

HankRing uses a flan-based rating scale instead of stars. You'll need to be signed in to rate.

RatingLabelMeaning
1 flanConfirmed SpotThey have it
2 flansNeighborhood OptionSatisfies the craving
3 flansBest Local ChoiceBest of the nearby choices
4 flansBest in RegionWorthy of a road trip
5 flansWorld ClassWorthy of a pilgrimage

How to Rate

Open the spot detail page, tap "Rate", select the category you're rating, choose your flan level, and confirm. The app will ask you to confirm higher ratings (4 and 5 flans) to make sure you really mean it — those levels carry weight.

You can edit or remove your rating anytime by revisiting the spot detail page.

Important: Only rate items you've personally tried at that specific location. The rating is about that item at that place, not the restaurant overall. Rating earns you +5 points toward your contributor rank.

The Spots Tab

The Spots tab is a unified page that combines community-verified spots with live search results. When you open the tab, the app automatically searches nearby venues based on your active Hank picks.

Category Filters and Toggles

Category filter pills at the top let you narrow results to a specific pick. Below that, three toggles — Verified, Likely, and Nearby — control which types of results appear. Each shows a count so you can focus on what matters most.

Searching Other Cities

Tap the location bar to search a different city. Type a name, pick from the suggestions, and the app scans that area for your Hanks. Great for planning trips.

Search Wider Area

After the initial search finishes, a "Search Wider Area?" button appears at the bottom. Tapping it scans additional venues beyond the initial closest results, promoting new Likely matches into the list.

Tap any result to open the detail sheet with an automated website check. From there you can add it to HankRing or tap "Show on Map" to see it on the map.

Trip planning: You can search for venues in any city, not just near you. Heading to a new town? Search it on the Spots tab before you go.

My Journal

The My Journal tab tracks your community contributions. Every spot you add, every rating and verification you submit, and every offering you log earns you points.

Scoring

ActionPoints
Add a new spot+10
Rate a spot+5
Identify a category on a spot+3
Log an offering (brand, style, etc.)+1
Verify a spot+1

Contributor Ranks

Ranks are based on where you fall relative to all contributors — the more you contribute compared to others, the higher your heat level on the pepper scale:

RankPercentile
Ghost PepperTop 10%
HabaneroTop 10–30%
SerranoTop 30–50%
JalapeñoTop 50–70%
PoblanoTop 70–90%
Bell PepperBottom 10%

When the community is still small, everyone is ranked as New until there are enough contributors for percentile ranking to kick in.

Brand Collector badge: Log 10+ brands or offerings to earn this special badge next to your name.

Profile

The Profile tab is your home base. What you see depends on whether you're signed in.

Signed Out

You'll see sign-in buttons (Apple and Email) and a link to What's New.

Signed In

The Profile tab shows your full contributor dashboard:

From here you can also change your display name, view What's New, return to the Tutorials, access the privacy policy and terms, sign out, or delete your account.

Share Your Feedback

During beta testing, you may see a floating orange feedback button in the bottom-right corner of the screen (visible in Figure 3). Tap it to open the feedback form.

Submitting Feedback

  1. Tap the orange feedback button
  2. Choose a category: Bug, Suggestion, Content, Design, or Other
  3. Optionally enter the city you're exploring
  4. Write your feedback (at least 10 characters)
  5. Tap "Submit Feedback"

Your feedback is sent along with basic device info (app version, device model, iOS version) so we can investigate any issues. No personal data beyond your anonymous user ID is included.

Your input shapes the app. Every piece of feedback is read by the HankRing team. Bug reports, feature ideas, and content suggestions all help us build a better experience.

For Venue Owners

If you own or manage a spot that's on HankRing, you can update your listing just like any other user, for free. To go further, contact support@hankring.com to become Owner Verified. Owner verification gives you:

Tips and Tricks