Just because of thie huge database, Google seems to have the needed information more often than not. Way more often than not.

Excellent search engine; I found a hole in the wall restaurant that none of the other search directories could.

Google Local takes a lot of flak for not offering the same features as Yahoo! local and not being as fancy. But even with all of the cool things Yahoo! is doing, I still prefer the simplicity of Google Local. The problem with Google Local is the problem with any local directory type surface - the data is constantly going stale - businesses are closing, things are opening, and there's tons of errors. But besides this problem (which I'm not sure will ever be fixed), Google Local is a nice tool.