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Over the years as I’ve written over 1,300+ reviews on NC Triangle Dining, Yelp, Google, Zomato and other online websites, I’ve also read a ton of reviews. If you want to improve your writing, the best way to do it is by reading a lot! And I’m always looking to get a better handle on the restaurant and food scene in the Triangle. What’s hot, what’s not and everything in between. So online reviews are super-helpful unless they aren’t helpful! Like good and bad restaurants, you unfortunately have good and bad reviewers too. My reviews tend to skew a bit higher, I do have not so great experiences but sometimes choose not to review them.
What bothers me with nasty reviews is that we’re talking about somebody’s business and life-blood so taking unfair (and often anonymous) hacks online just doesn’t seem right. And it happens all the time. Sometimes they are purposeful hack jobs (they fired me, the owner cheated on me, etc). Or sometimes legitimate concerns given a nutty owner/service person because it does happen. But most of them fall under the more subtle “just doesn’t know any better” umbrella. And here are some of my favorite transgressions that I’ve seen online and the reviewers behind them…
Cheap-o Charlie typically goes to lower-end, inexpensive restaurants and demands white-glove service. Meal substitutions, extra sauce, and twinkling service delivered by his own personal waiter. In my opinion you get what you pay for so if you’re dining low-brow, don’t have unreasonable expectations on service and ambiance! But Charlie does and takes the restaurant to task for not delivering better service on their $6.50 lunch, sigh.
Inexperienced Irene is not the type of person to go out too often and when she does, it’s pretty basic and simple. So when she ends up at a restaurant that serves more unusual eats like Asian fusion or Nuevo Latino, she doesn’t get it and dings them appropriately for her misunderstanding. Inexperienced Irene means well but needs to understand what the restaurant concept is before she comments and reviews online. If it’s not like the other “fill-in-the-blank” type restaurants, it may be trying to do just that!
Vegan-Celiac Valerie is tough because she has a gluten-free, non-leather wearing life-style that can’t be pleased. There’s unlikely to be ANY restaurant that really suits her dietary and philosophical needs so she goes online to take a flame-thrower to the decent and humble restaurant that unfortunately hosted her. While I may respect her dietary discipline and medical conditions, Vegan Valerie can not fairly review a restaurant because she can’t eat off 98% of the menu. Her reviews are just way too narrow and demanding to be taken seriously…
Tunnel-Eater Thomas eats like a 12 year old and fixates on certain items. A restaurant that serves Pepsi instead of Coke?! What? I’m walking out. Or a Chinese buffet without General Tsao’s chicken? A crime. No Bud Light? That’s the most popular beer in the country, harumpf. And of course the restaurant will be severely punished for not meeting their single-minded expectation, one star for you!
Opening-Day Oliver is excited to be one of the first at a hot, new spot. And yes, while the place is really cool, service may be a mess. And yes, they’re gonna get one-star for that bad service! In my experience, it can take 1 – 3 months for a restaurant to shake-out and get its operations and service in order. There are a lot of moving parts and you definitely need to be careful (and generous) during the opening weeks for a new establishment. But Oliver just loves to hammer a new spot making sure it gets off to a bad start with negative online reviews…
Often or not, one-star reviews by Charlie, Irene, Valerie, Thomas and Oliver will end with a statement like, “You’ve lost a customer…” And I’m pretty sure restaurant owners are thinking, “Thank God!” In many of the above cases, restaurant owners would prefer to lose this type of customer instead of going out of business trying to keep them happy. The unfortunate reality is that sometimes the customer ISN’T right.
When you’re reviewing online, be aware that you can truly impact the word of mouth reputation for a small business. Try to present both sides of the experience along with specific examples of where things went wrong along with potential fixes. And if you’re a dining outlier or 1%er with “excessively high standards”, be aware of that too. There’s nothing wrong with liking what you like but be aware of where you are on the spectrum of diners.
Online reviews are meant to inform and guide the general public to better dining decisions and it’s not much help when you’re being unreasonable or extremely narrow in your expectations. You can certainly agree or disagree my friend, it’s fair game…
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