daryn's tumblelog

Ranting about Yelp Reviews

Lately, I’ve lost a bit of faith in Yelp restaurant reviews, mainly because 90% of what I read is:

This place is too expensive
The portions were too small
I never got ____. They never asked if I wanted _____.
They “lied”

The anecdotes and stories that are held within these reviews are often great, but the way that people map them to star ratings just doesn’t make sense to me.

Sure, everyone has different budgets, but this is a complaint on nearly every restaurant from $$ to $$$$. It’s true that there are plenty of overpriced restaurants, but if a place goes from 5 to 3 stars because they don’t serve PBR or they charged a dollar for your side of rice, that’s just not helpful.
TIWYF. Besides the obvious (it’s not too small, but rather you, like me, are too big…), most of the time I see this mentioned for small-plate / tapas-style places. You know you’re supposed to order more than 1 dish right?
Did you ask for ____? Did you ask your server when you didn’t get it? I think this is the passive-aggressiveness that come with the safety of a computer between the reviewer and a real person. It’s much easier to complain after the fact, but 9/10 times it was an honest mistake that could have been quickly rectified.
Really? Again, step 1: ask. For the most part, restaurants aren’t in business to cheat you. “All lunch entrees come with fries” probably doesn’t include your nachos or your baked potato. Would that even make sense? It’s probably just a poorly worded menu, and you should point that out so they can fix it in the future — and you’ll usually get your fries in the meantime.

So, what you see here in Seattle, and probably elsewhere, is that places like teriyaki joints get 5 stars. Go upscale even a little bit, and your ratings plummet. Yes, those places should be held to a higher standard, but then use a higher standard - don’t just apply a linear scale to every aspect of your meal and ever expect to be satisfied.

I’ve got plenty more to complain about with Yelp reviews (like that you can only compliment reviews, and can’t vote on whether a review was or wasn’t helpful), but what do you think? Have you noticed it too, or it is just old curmudgeony me?