Linda,
The top 5% award is determined by a number of factors. These include: reviews, page views, completeness of page (photos, website, directions, etc..) events, and coupons. Basically the more info the tearoom owner provides, and more importantly, the more positive reviews they receive, the better their rating.
The tearoom owners have access to all this info once they log into their admin pages. In fact, we provide them with a list comparing all the tearooms in their state.
Hope this explains it.