TikTok adds restaurant guides and builds toward payments in super app push

A restaurant guide built from 40 million posts

TikTok has introduced Must Eat, an in-app restaurant guide that assembles recommendations from more than 40 million posts and comments, according to TechCrunch. Users can browse restaurants by city and filter results by cuisine, price, rating and location, turning the platform's organic food content into a structured discovery tool.

The feature formalizes behavior that already existed: viral videos on the app have repeatedly driven customers to local eateries. It also places TikTok in closer competition with Yelp and Google Maps, long the default tools for finding somewhere to eat.

Payments through direct messages

Commerce may be the more consequential development. Bloomberg reported in August that TikTok is working on a way for users to send money to one another via direct messages, built on TikTok Pay, a payment service already available in Southeast Asia for TikTok Shop purchases. Separately, Reuters reported in March that TikTok had applied to Brazil's central bank for approval to operate as a financial technology company offering lending and payment services.

Neither effort is confirmed as a full rollout, but together they target the missing piece of a super app: the ability to move money without leaving it.

Years of groundwork

The new features extend an established pattern. TikTok Shop, tested in 2021 and launched in the U.S. in 2023, remains the company's largest step beyond media and now competes with Amazon and Shein. Citing eMarketer, TechCrunch reports that TikTok Shop's U.S. sales grew 407% in 2024 and another 108% in 2025, reaching $15.82 billion, and that it represented 18.2% of American social commerce last year, a share expected to climb to 24.1% by 2027.

The rest of the portfolio is filling in. TikTok GO, launched in May, lets U.S. users discover and book hotels, attractions and experiences inside the app. A FIFA World Cup hub arrived in June, built on a sports product called TikTok GamePlan, alongside partnerships with Major League Soccer and Major League Baseball. Search now surfaces maps, local hashtags, reviews, opening hours and ratings. The company has also added games, microdramas through an in-app Minis section and a stand-alone app, TikTok Shop gift cards, and a push into luxury retail.

The record is not unbroken. TikTok Music, a streaming service launched in 2023 to challenge Spotify and Apple Music, was shut down a year later, and the company now partners with streamers instead, including a feature that lets Apple Music subscribers play full songs in the app. TechCrunch also notes that TikTok moved to new, primarily U.S.-based ownership in January, relevant context for a company now seeking financial licenses.

Why it matters

The super app model — a single platform covering messaging, payments, commerce, bookings and entertainment, as WeChat does in China — has never been replicated at scale in Western markets. TikTok is mounting the most serious attempt yet: it has the engagement, demonstrated commerce revenue and, increasingly, the regulatory applications needed to handle transactions.

If the restaurant guide and peer-to-peer payments ship broadly, TikTok stops being the place where people discover a restaurant, a trip or a product and becomes the place where they book, buy and pay for it. That threatens Google's search and maps businesses, Yelp, travel booking platforms, and fintech and e-commerce companies alike. It also invites scrutiny: payments require licenses, and whether users outside China will trust one app with this much of their digital life remains unproven. TikTok Music shows expansion can fail. But the direction is clear — TikTok no longer sees itself as just a social feed.