If you type a name of business or service together with a location into Google Search, you will now get a quick comparison of local businesses and services, and - if available - an extract from Google Maps pointing to their location. It seems to work best with a specifically structured query - name_of_business near/in place.

Here are several queries that I’ve tried out and that work:
computer shops near los angeles
concert halls near london
pet shops in paris
which cinema new york

Have in mind that ‘shops near London‘ works, but, if you write ‘shops London‘ it doesn’t work. So, although Google nowhere specifically says so, at the moment it’s best to use the “service near/in place” structure.

*Update: Upon further testing, I’ve found a weird quirk with the service. It doesn’t work at all if you go through a localized Google page, such as www.google.hr. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like having different Google results in different localizations. It’s confusing, and mildly annoying.

You are initially presented with only a couple local business and services, but you can click on “More local business results” and you’ll get a Google Map with many more results. Another important thing, noticed by Apogee Weblog is that AdWords advertisers probably won’t like this, as it draws attention away from the ads. However, Google is (hopefully) about search and not about ads, so I guess that this is the type of sacrifice both Google and advertisers will have to make every now and then.