Read the bar
before you trust it.
Selection is by automated evaluation against the criteria below — the same criteria, on every business in scope, in every market, every year. No subjective panel. Humans review the data; they do not pick winners.
Five things a real business builds — and a fake one can’t.
We describe the criteria in plain language and deliberately keep the exact data points, weights, and thresholds internal. Publishing them would invite shortcuts, and the bar has to mean something.
Years in operation
A winner has been around long enough to leave a real public track record. Brand-new openings wait until that record exists; about three years of visible public operation is the kind of floor the criteria look for.
Sustained online presence
Visibly present online for years: their own site, their listings, their profiles. Not a homepage that appeared last month.
Established customer track record
Enough customers served that the public footprint reflects it. Not three reviews — a body of evidence.
Liked by customers and the community
Public sentiment is consistently positive. The community is glad they exist.
Recognition in the local community
They show up where good local businesses show up: local guides, local press, the conversations a town has about itself.
One business per title. Many titles per category.
Every Centurion Award is a specific, dated title that names one business, like “Best Brewpubs in Flagstaff, 2025.” The title is written to describe what that business actually is, so it fits that one business and no other.
The directory sorts those titles into broader categories, such as restaurants or tours, so a visitor can browse a city. A category isn’t one prize with one winner. A single city can hold “Best Downtown Breweries” and “Best Meaderies” at the same time. They’re different titles for different businesses, and each gets its own dated page.
The bar behind every title is the same: the five published criteria, applied to every business in scope. A title is written to describe a business that already cleared that bar, never carved narrow enough to manufacture a winner, so the number of titles a city holds is bounded by how many of its businesses actually clear it. No business holds more than one award in a year, and nothing about a title is for sale.
Two outcomes. Both handled honestly.
If you clear the bar
We email you directly with your result and a signed link to the short application. The criteria grant the award; the application publishes the winner page, typically within one business day.
If you don’t — negative results stay private
We never post negative verdicts. If we reach out, we name the qualitative criterion that fell short and tell you what to do about it. Every business may be reconsidered in a later run.
Dated, renewable, and revocable — like a credential should be.
Annual renewal
A Centurion Award is valid for the calendar year it was awarded. To stay current, a winner must clear the bar again in the January re-evaluation and renew for the new year. The bar never retires.
Back-year awards
When a current winner was also eligible in prior years, they may claim those years too. Eligibility is anchored on public evidence the business was already operating then (domain registration, archive history, verified founding year); each claimed year publishes as its own dated winner page, issued from the current verified record, with no separate evaluation for the claimed year. Longevity is the whole point; it should show.
Revocation & integrity
Manipulated signals, false application facts, or misuse of the mark can cost a business its award. Where practical, winners get a short appeals window first. For a for-cause revocation, we may publish a dated notice in place of that page rather than taking it down quietly. Ordinary retirements work differently: when a business closes, is renamed or sold, or asks to come off the site, we remove the listing and post no notice.
Why not publish the exact thresholds?
Because every “best of” service that publishes its rubric gets gamed within months — and then the badge means nothing. We refuse to play that game.
The qualitative criteria above describe exactly what we evaluate. The precise data points and thresholds stay internal so they can’t be manufactured. If your business is a real local operator who has been doing the work for years, you are in the conversation. If you’re not yet — and we reach out — we’ll tell you which criterion to focus on.
The wall between the fee and the selection
Last reviewed July 20, 2026. This section states in one place what the $199 processing fee does and does not buy. The same practices appear in our Terms of Service and our FAQ.
- Selection is decided before payment is possible. On the application path, the evaluation runs against the five published criteria and settles before checkout exists for that business. Payment cannot come first, so it cannot change the result.
- The processing fee pays for publication. Nominating a business and evaluating it carry no charge. When a business applies to publish, the $199 covers handling the application and producing, publishing, and hosting the winner page and award assets for that award year. Some listings are published from our research without an application or fee; those are editorial and removable on request.
- No placement here is for sale. No category is sponsored, and no position in any directory or list can be bought. A human reviewer can correct a misidentified business or ask for a scan to be re-run, and manual changes are stored with a written reason in the audit log.
- An application we do not approve is refunded in full. A business is not charged for an award we do not publish through the paid application path.
The binding version is in our Terms of Service, at Sections 4 and 5.
Know a business that clears this bar?
Nominating is free — for you and for them. We’ll evaluate the business against the criteria and contact it directly if it’s eligible.