AskYourDriver started as an answer I got tired of repeating.
I drive in Asheville. Airport runs, downtown, West Asheville, the breweries, hotel pickups, the long haul out to the Parkway. Somewhere in the first five minutes of almost every ride, a passenger asks some version of the same question: where should we actually eat, where do locals drink, what's worth doing that isn't in the hotel brochure.
For a while I answered it out loud, badly, while merging. You get about ninety seconds and three recommendations before the person stops retaining anything, and half of what I said got lost by the time they were in their room. So I put it on a page and stuck a QR code in the back seat. That's this site.
What makes these different from a search result
I'm not ranking anything by review count. I don't get paid by the restaurants on this list, and if a place ever does pay to be featured it will say so directly on the card.
What I have that a review aggregator doesn't is repetition. I take people to these places and then, an hour or three later, I pick them up and hear how it went. I hear it hundreds of times a year. I know which places have a wait that looks worse than it is, which ones have no parking at all, which ones are great at 5pm and miserable at 9, and which ones quietly stopped being good.
I also know what came back after Helene and what didn't. Several beloved Asheville spots closed for good, and I've pulled them off this list as I confirm it. If you see something here that's shut, tell me and I'll fix it that week.
Who I am
I'm a local. I've driven here for years, and I also run Wanderlust Transit, a small van, car, and motorcycle rental operation in Asheville, mostly for wedding parties and groups who realize too late that six people and four rideshares is a bad plan. Those are two separate businesses and I'll always tell you which one I'm talking about.
How this site makes money
Straightforwardly, and I'd rather say it than have you wonder:
- Affiliate links. Some tour and hotel links pay me a small commission if you book through them. It costs you nothing extra, and it has never once changed what I recommend — I'd rather lose a commission than send somebody somewhere bad and hear about it on the ride back.
- Local sponsorships. A business can pay to be featured in a section. When that happens the card is labeled Featured. It sits alongside the regular picks, not instead of them.
- Tips. There's a tip button at the bottom of the main page. Entirely optional and genuinely appreciated.
- Ads. If display ads run on this site, they're served by a third party and I don't choose what appears.
Drive somewhere else?
Every city has drivers answering this same question badly at 40 miles an hour. If you drive rideshare in another city and want a page like this for your own back seat, email me — that's where this is headed.