Search tips

How to find a licence when the obvious search fails.

Licence registers store legal names, not the names on the awning. A few habits make the difference.

Search less, not more

Registers are inconsistent about suffixes, punctuation and abbreviations. Joe’s beats Joe’s Bar & Grill LLC almost every time.

Try the owner as well as the trade name

We search trading name, holder name and street address together, but the holder is often a numbered company or a family name that shares nothing with the sign outside.

For an address, use the number and street only

4200 Main, not 4200 Main Street Suite B, Houston, TX 77002. Unit numbers and postal formatting are recorded inconsistently.

Clear the filters

“Active only” hides exactly the record you want when you are researching a premises that changed hands. Expired and surrendered licences are often the most informative rows in the file.

Browse instead of searching

If you know the area but not the name, go via the state page to the county or town, then filter by class. For a small town that is frequently faster than any search string.

Connecticut is four datasets

Restaurant, package store, cafe and tavern permits live in separate files and we query all four at once. If a Connecticut business is missing, it may hold a class outside those four — the 306,644-row master register covers everything but carries the backer’s address rather than the premises address.