Reasons your reviews suck and what to do about it

Excellent post on the power of amateurs and the damage they do. And, how to fix it.

http://mcslimjb.blogspot.com/2013/04/11-reasons-your-yelp-reviews-suck-and.html

Very well done and helpful analysis of issues I'm sure many of us have confronted and thought about.

I agree with this article's points- especially regarding service issues- I tend to discount almost all of what people complain about regarding service, since is it almost impossible to know what transpired during the experience judged unsatisfactory. As a diner, I have certainly seen a lot of very bad behavior from people who believe that "the customer is always right."

Another area that I think is a problem in online reviews concerns judgements of value. Often the only complaint an amateur online reviewer has about a place is that they thought it was too expensive. This is certainly a matter of opinion. If I want some freshly cut duck fat fries, I am happy to pay for them, while another person might find that McDonald's fries are the standard of excellence. Does that person have a right to trash my duck-fat-fry serving restaurant? Emphatically NO!

I recently had this conversation. The fried bologna sandwich @ Au Cheval was the culprit (I believe it's $9). That led to Butcher and Larder, Publican Quality Meats, subsidies for certain crops that create an artificial enviornment of empty calories on an uneven playing field that makes an apple more expensive than a snickers etc, etc.

You get what you pay for and if you support finer ingredients made with time consuming techniques, there's a price to pay. Some do willingly, some reluctantly as it's all in the eye of the beholder. And opinions, as we know...

Though I would dispute Snickers bars being a crop , I agree in part: my uninformed impression is that our farm subsidy system seems to favor the affordability of vegetables much more than the affordability of fruit, e.g., the apple mentioned---although apples may be among the more affordable of fruits available to us.

But that all seems irrelavent to me. Jazz, while I realize you were just extracting snippets from what was probably a long and involved conversation, I gotta say, re "You get what you pay for and if you support finer ingredients made with time consuming techniques, there's a price to pay," if bologna is a finer ingredient and frying it is a time-consuming technique, I think I can manage it at home for far less than $9. That might not be the best test of what economists call WTP*.

What my comments have to do with the subject of "amateur" reviews is this: for those who feel they can cook fairly well at home (and surely that includes you), it is annoying to pay what seems an unreasonable amount for something you could have (and wished you had) done better yourself. To those people, "not worth the price" review comments may be interesting insights. For those who are not confident home cooks and wouldn't attempt a fried bologna sandwich, much less a beef Wellington, such comments are less relevant.


*willingness to pay

Katie wrote:But that all seems irrelavent to me. Jazz, while I realize you were just extracting snippets from what was probably a long and involved conversation, I gotta say, re "You get what you pay for and if you support finer ingredients made with time consuming techniques, there's a price to pay," if bologna is a finer ingredient and frying it is a time-consuming technique, I think I can manage it at home for far less than $9. That might not be the best test of what economists call WTP*.

Katie, I had the house-made bologna sandwich at Au Cheval yesterday and it was well worth the $9 that I paid for it. What did you think of it?

I would dispute Snickers bars being a crop

You mean you've never seen snickers growing in Iowa? You must have seen corn and soy beans though- both of which are highly subsidized and are in just about every candy bar made i.e. corn syrup and partially hydroginated soy bean oil.

I also wanted to mention the fairly obvious origin of the word "amateur," lest we be tempted too much to denigrate amateurs:

Origin: late 18th century: from French, from Italian amatore, from Latin amator 'lover', from amare 'to love'

You can't seriously argue that people buy Snickers instead of apples because Snickers are cheaper, because they're not. They buy Snickers instead of apples for other reasons. You also can't argue that I don't have the right to express an opinion about hearing about a $9 bologna sandwich available some 30 miles or more away from where I live unless you can make a much stronger argument about why it's worth my time and money to drive there to try it rather than make one at home. Not that Au Cheval might not offer a really fantastic bologna sandwich--that's not the point.

I'm trying to address the topic. My point was that willingness to pay for restaurant dishes is related to a customer's own level of confidence about being able to prepare the same dish at home at what is likely to be a lower cost, and therefore, for some customers, "not worth the price" review comments are relevant. If you don't feel that my post said anything relevant to the subject of "reasons your reviews suck and what to do about it," then feel free to ignore it.

Jazzfood wrote:
You mean you've never seen snickers growing in Iowa?

Everyone knows they grow in Oak Park.

There are many people who do not go out to eat much or at all because they believe they can make it cheaper at home. I agree that this is sometimes the case. Not all eating out is motivated by that...I eat out because I do not want to cook all the time and I am willing to pay for the service of someone cooking for me. Hopefully I will get a good meal for the money. Regarding amateurs, well that is what mostly eats out because very few of us are professional cooks. I think their opinion counts even if I do not agree with it. On the other hand their will always be some unreasonable reviewers. I do hope that restaurants read reviews and see if there is anything they can glean from them regardless of the source. Those that dismiss reviewers as amateurs and continue to have service or food value issues may find themselves out of business.

Darren72 wrote:Katie, I had the house-made bologna sandwich at Au Cheval yesterday and it was well worth the $9 that I paid for it. What did you think of it?

As far as I can tell, nothing in Katie's post implies that she has had this sandwich at Au Cheval. Her point (that someone's own cooking skill is a variable that may enter into that person's evaluation of whether an item is overpriced, a point I found interesting, valid and relevant to the topic) doesn't rely on her having had it.

While I do read Yelp reviews and have left five or six of them myself (all for places I rate as 5-stars), I have to agree with pretty much the entire article. The most annoying Yelp! reviews are the ones where the author is just a little too much in love with his/her writing style and turns every review into a frigging literary exercise with pointless details, irrelevant asides, and self-important claims of authority, all while completely missing the point of the type of cuisine being served. The example of a reviewer complaining about the lack of spaghetti and meatballs in a Northern Italian restaurant is a perfect example of the time of "missing the point" I come across far too often in Yelp! reviews.

I also look at the total number of reviews and see what most are saying. The one or two that complain about something might be off target. Interestingly read the reviews on Alinea. Most had glowing praise but a few left a couple stars and were not impressed. I almost do not know what to make of this.....

This was a really interesting article and I agreed with much of it. BUT...I'm don't agree that a diner should have to visit a high-end restaurant multiple times before posting an on-line review. At an expensive restaurant, I think the restaurant needs to make sure that the kitchen is putting out consistently good and service is top notch. I don't think someone is obligated to drop another, say, $300, to make sure that the restaurant is not up to snuff before posting a review. A brand new restaurant in the mid-price range or a mom and pop place, sure...
I also don't agree that someone has to have extensive home cooking/restaurant experience to write a good review. We do a lot of cooking at home and, while I know how to 'steam a lobster', I don't think that should be a necessary criteria for posting an on-line review of a restaurant. Should movie critics have to be directors first?

thaiobsessed wrote:This was a really interesting article and I agreed with much of it. BUT...I'm don't agree that a diner should have to visit a high-end restaurant multiple times before posting an on-line review. At an expensive restaurant, I think the restaurant needs to make sure that the kitchen is putting out consistently good and service is top notch. I don't think someone is obligated to drop another, say, $300, to make sure that the restaurant is not up to snuff before posting a review. A brand new restaurant in the mid-price range or a mom and pop place, sure...
I also don't agree that someone has to have extensive home cooking/restaurant experience to write a good review. We do a lot of cooking at home and, while I know how to 'steam a lobster', I don't think that should be a necessary criteria for posting an on-line review of a restaurant. Should movie critics have to be directors first?

I agree. Do professional reviewers visit places more than twice before publishing reviews? In most cases, no. Sometimes, they only visit once. No one could reasonably expect the standard to be higher for amateurs than it is for pros.

=R=

Speaking of standards, the code of ethics from the Association of Food Journalists:

http://afjonline.com/ethics.cfm

Jazzfood wrote:Speaking of standards, the code of ethics from the Association of Food Journalists:

http://afjonline.com/ethics.cfm

Interesting that no mention at all is made regarding number of visits, though, this doesn't specifically apply to reviews. I guess the reality of life is that if you operate a restaurant and you take the customers' money, you're entirely accountable, regardless of whether or not you think it's fair. In other words, make every cover count.

=R=

ronnie_suburban wrote:

Jazzfood wrote:Speaking of standards, the code of ethics from the Association of Food Journalists:

http://afjonline.com/ethics.cfm

Interesting that no mention at all is made regarding number of visits, though, this doesn't specifically apply to reviews. I guess the reality of life is that if you operate a restaurant and you take the customers' money, you're entirely accountable, regardless of whether or not you think it's fair. In other words, make every cover count.

=R=

I think the lack of mention is more likely due to the fact that the number of visits relates more to credibility/reliability/value of the review rather than to the ethics involved.

BR wrote:

ronnie_suburban wrote:

Jazzfood wrote:I think the lack of mention is more likely due to the fact that the number of visits relates more to credibility/reliability/value of the review rather than to the ethics involved.

For an individual review, yes, but the benefit to a site like Yelp is that the sum of all the reviews together should provide the needed sample size.

I often find yelp reviews unhelpful, even when there are lots of them, so that you'd think you could get a general sense of the restaurant. Maybe the problem is that this isn't a "sample" in the usual sense of the term. The author of the article was right that some of these reviews are so flawed that they would be tossed out of a normal sample. Try these, for instance:

[Well-known Chicago restaurant]: you did not live up to the hype or my expectations. Our food was cold and overly smoked (2 of 4 plates) despite no mention of smokey flavor on the very detailed description. Dessert options were very limited as you were "out" of several. Hmmm.

Here's someone who clearly didn't try to do anything about getting food he felt was cold and who doesn't know that restaurants run out of items on the menu (what -- does he think they conspired against him? that they gave his pudding to someone they liked better?] Or there's this one:

it didn't really meet my expectations.

SERVICE
Our wait staff was quick and accurate with our orders but neither of them displayed any passion or excitement about the food or wine. They never mentioned the chef's tasting option (which is kind of hidden on the menu) When I was torn on which glass of wine I should order, they did not offer us a taste. Again at this level of a restaurant I expected a more of a dinning experience not just dinner

This reviewer complains that the staff didn't point out specific items that were on the menu (how is an item both on the menu and hidden?) that she might have wanted and that they didn't offer her a taste of wines, although she never says she asked for one. What's the value of a review by someone who feels that a great restaurant has a psychic waitstaff?

And what if the restaurant gets a lot of press and thus pulls in a larger number of this kind of reviewer ("I went to a place because I'd heard all the hype -- but then it didn't meet the expectations I made up in my head about what a trendy restaurant should be like. The wait staff didn't wear stripes! Where was the monkey-themed decor? All plates should be garnished with mandrake root!")? It has to pull their average scores down, and yet it only means that they are suffering from the effects of publicity, not that they are any worse than a place with a better average number of stars. I'll believe in the wisdom of crowds when they stop waiting 2 hours for brunch.

MariaTheresa wrote:I'll believe in the wisdom of crowds when they stop waiting 2 hours for brunch.

...needs to be the banner quote.

Just came across this thoughtful interview with Ruth Reichl:

Ruth Reichl on What Restaurants Should Know About Food Critics (& How to Spot One)