I remember watching a video on how Michelin Stars started out as a travel guide brochure for the best restaurants in France as a sort of advertisement for Michelin branded tyres (look at all these restaurants you could go to with Michelin tyres!).
How did the Michelin stars become so sought after by top restaurants and chefs? Was the head of the Michelin tyre company also a renowned food connoisseur or something? What about other tyre companiee, why didn’t they do something similar? Are Michelin Stars still given by the tyre company, or has it been spun off into its own thing?
There was a point where tires were expensive but they lasted a long time because so few people had cars and they didn’t drive them often. So two brothers who owned a tire company were trying to figure out how to sell more tires to the few people who owned cars.
The answer was to get them to wear their tires out faster by providing a list of places they could visit that would warrant the expense of wearing down their tires.
So the stat rating was more of a "this place is worth a visit/road trip system. And they published this list and it caught on and then restaurants wanted to get Michelin stars for the notariety and the essentially free press.
I feel like the real question is in this statement
Iirc it was printed as a guide with maps and stars marking the restaurants locations and given out with the tyres for free. I guess people back then had nothing better to do than road trip to restaurants. It was popular enough restaurants wanted to be in it which caused them to up their game so the reviewers would add them to the guide and it escalated to where it is now.