RALEIGH – If Amazon HQ2 recruiters have romance tucked away as a requirement for which of 20 finalists metros lands its mammoth headquarters project, Raleigh just took a big hit.
The Capital City ranks seventh, or next-to-the-bottom, of most unromantic cities, according to hope shopping service Instacart.
To add insult to heartbreak, Charlotte ranks No. 5 as a best city for romance.
Well, at least Raleigh (the Triangle, actually) made the Amazon top 20 finalists and its North Carolina rival didn’t.
As for the Instacart rankings, they were based on searches across the close to 200 markets where it now does business. Instacart, which recently expanded its service in the Triangle to Sanford, based its Instacart Romance Index rankings on a variety of “universally romantic terms” search terms, from chocolate to wine.
“Admittedly, we’re obsessed with every aspect of grocery shopping. As such, last year — for the first time ever — we decided to use February to look at grocery for its insight into romance. The results were so interesting (and fun) that we’re diving into this year’s search data to reveal the most — and least — romantic cities, according to the 2018 IRI,” Instcart noted in a blog post.
Instacart notes that as Valentine’s Day nears there is “a spike in romance-related search trends.”
- In terms of sheer volume, “chocolate” came in on top of our search index terms and “strawberries” came in second. This classic combo remains the go-to Valentine’s Day fave.
- Searches for the term “heart” — think heart-shaped candy, cookies, pizza, etc. — saw the biggest spike in Valentine’s Day ordering with a whopping 219% surge.
The most romantic cities:
- Boston
- Atlanta
- Austin
- Philadelphia
- Charlotte
- Oakland
- Washington, D.C.
- Chicago
And the least:
8. Houston
7. San Antonio
6. San Diego
5. Denver
4. Seattle
3. Orlando
2. Raleigh
1. Indianapolis
