About Ottawa.Best

Ottawa.Best is an annual people's choice award for businesses across the city. Every winner is decided by residents — not a panel, not an editorial team, and never by anyone paying for a spot.

Anyone can nominate a business for free. We review each nomination by hand before it appears. When voting opens, each person gets one vote per category, confirmed by email, with unusual patterns flagged and reviewed before results are final.

The top three in each category are announced together with a permanent award page, and winners get a badge for their window and their website.

How sponsorship works

Categories can be sponsored, and sponsors are clearly labelled as such. Sponsorship buys visibility beside an award — it never buys a nomination, a vote, or a win. That line is the whole point of the thing.