[palakchokshi]

http://yelp.com/robots.txt

It seems you can contact Yelp and tell them how you plan to use their data and maybe they'll let you crawl their site.

I really want to explore any and all alternative options before I decide to crawl away :)

[argumentum]

Are you hacker, or aren't you? Dumb rules exist to be broken.

[palakchokshi]

Agreed but no harm in accessing the vast knowledge of the HN community to exhaust alternatives before tightening my hacker cap and plunging in head first.