How Lemontree improved map performance with a small refactor

A Q&A with Samuel Cole , CTO of Lemontree Lemontree is a New York-based nonprofit on a mission to fight food insecurity by connecting hungry Americans to free food resources near them. Often described as a "Yelp for food banks," they curate and manage rich data on thousands of food pantries across the U.S., making it accessible through an easy-to-use digital platform with maps, SMS alerts, and more. In 2025, Lemontree helped over a million people locate nearby food pantries. At the heart of their product is an interactive map — powered by Mapbox GL JS — that lets users instantly see nearby pantry locations, hours, and available foods. Recently, Lemontree overhauled how they load and display map data to dramatically improve performance. We sat down with Samuel Cole, CTO of Lemontree, to learn how they approached the problem and what they'd do differently from the start. Chris: Let's start with the original setup. What were you displaying on the map, where did the data come from, and wha