Attention, Yelpers: FUCK YOU. We understand that you have difficulty comprehending basic info, so we repeat: FUCK YOU. As long-standing members of the restaurant industry, we feel a moral imperative to reiterate on behalf of our community: FUCK YOU, Yelpers. Your asinine, masturbatory online hobby is literally fucking our livelihoods. We bet it’s a bundle o’ fun to pretend at being real restaurant critics. Sadly, all you’re really doing is expressing an inability to communicate directly, verbally, and effectively with your fellow humans. Service slow? Order wrong? Waitperson’s shoes too ugly? Would you like these things changed? Probably best to semianonymously post nasty things online that we’ll read, like, four days later, right? WRONG, YOU FART-HUFFING IMBECILES. If you come to our restaurants and something goes wrong, and you tell us TO OUR FACES, we’ll either fix the problem or give you free shit. Stop being such bratty fucking children, Yelpers of Seattle.
—Anonymous
Oddly, I rarely have anything bad to say about the new businesses I try out. Oh, maybe that has something to do with the fact that I check out their ratings before going, including, amongst other sites, on Yelp. Yeah, totally useless. I guess I’m just really, really good at randomly picking high-quality restaurants, bars, shops, and service providers.
I’ve yelped twice. I wrote a one star review. Then I went back becaue friend made me and gave it a five star review. IA is correct, take it to the source and figure out why your panties is in a bunch if you don’t get your spelda. Maybe the waiter will tell you to go somewhere else, where you belong if you are that petty.
http://www.yelp.com/review_share/MLMgli4…
Let me give you a non-hypothetical situation. Five years ago, I took my then-girlfriend to Seattle for her birthday. She really wanted to go to ‘Campagne’ – which got great reviews on Yelp.
We showed up at 6:55 for a 7 pm reservation and the place was maybe half-full. I told the host our names and that we had a table at 7 pm. He barked “Go stand over there!” And then he walked away. We were kind of bewildered and just stood there for a minute. Another employee walked by and asked us if we had been helped – I told her what had happened. No apology, no acknowledgment that this was a pretty weird way to greet people…Though she did eventually seat us. She ended up being our waitress and she was totally cold to us, basically ignoring us the entire night aside from what was necessary to bring us our food – in contrast to how she fluffed some regulars at another table, and hell, most other tables.
There are some restaurants that treat some customers like shit and talking to their employees or even their manager mano-a-mano about it isn’t going to help. If somebody doesn’t like criticism on the internet, they probably don’t like it in person, and when multiple employees act like shitheads, it’s coming down from the top.
To all the people who say “you have to work in the business”, bullshit. Why are you the only people in the world who are free from criticism by your customers? Perhaps waitstaff should be free from criticism by their managers? I can’t see that happening.
So let me get this straight I anon, if I come into your restaurant and my service is slow all I need to do is say this to you and the waiter serving me will fix this immediately or give me free shit? Slow service is not something I have ever complained about in the past. A wrong order I would definitely speak up about because it is fixable but slow service? Slow service is the sign of either a poorly managed kitchen or a poorly trained waiter. In my experience neither of these things are immediately fixable and calling a restaurant on it is not likely to result in a pleasant exchange.
The problem is not people complaining – the problem is that people don’t complain to their servers. They wait and complain later online. Of course there will be mistakes made at restaurants every now and again, but if you let someone know they’ll fix it. It’s kind of ridiculous to not say anything to the server and just start whining about it later online.
People feel empowered by online forums to write all the inanity they can possible think off. Unfortunately, if naturally, YELP lends validity to a great deal that is simply ridiculous whining, ignorance, and lack of social skills from diners who somehow feel able to critique. It is regrettable because it leads to the creation of a certain mob effect. It only takes a few negative comments for others to feel that negative is the vibe they need to amp in their silly post. It is disrespectful and ignorant… but then again, America is the land of disrespect and ignorance.
http://www.yelp.com/user_details_reviews_self?u…;
You are all ridiculous. Earthquakes, derivatives, and genocide and you idiots are talking about restaurants and yelp.
Yeah you know what you yelping shitbags, it has to be anonymous. If our employers ever get wind of any kind of defensive remark to some cocksucker whiny ‘guest’, we’ll get canned quicker than you can dream up your next bitch fest paragraph long complaint. Imagine for a second if every foodserver you’ve critiqued showed up at your place of business and whittled up every inane insignificant and childish complaint about your work and tried to get you FIRED. You fucking shitheads, don’t you realize that this is how we make our living, our LIVELIHOOD.
Wow, people sure get their fucking panties in a knot when you call them out on being whiny, passive-aggressive little bitches: “hey, fuck you for saying fuck you to me cuz I don’t have have the balls to address you directly when I have critical feedback!” Wah, wah, waaahhh….
Hey humbleservant – try, ya know, doing your job better. If you didn’t screw up, people wouldn’t complain about you, eh?
The purpose of yelp is to report people’s experiences with an establishment. If a lot of people have a poor experience, there’s going to be a lot of negative reviews. Simple as that. Why should you get a pass for a poor performance just because its how you make your living? If you can’t do it right, maybe you need another job.
As for the author’s “talk to the manager and get free stuff” comment…essentially, you are saying “hey, let us bribe you to keep quiet about our crappy performance”. That’s real classy.
(note: I’ve worked in food service before, and I now work in another industry that has a 5 star rating system even more closely tied to it)
So why don’t you do a better job?
Yelp is a payola advertisement site masquerading as online word of mouth. It’s totally worthless as a reference for finding good restaurants, services, basically anything. Just don’t use it. Stay away. You’ve been warned.
Don’t just take my word for it … read this:
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/eastbay/ye…
…ah, the rage of the over-tattooed…
I don’t write a bad Yelp review unless the service was so horifically bad to make me never, ever return. So if you’re getting poor Yelp reviews, fix your shit, crappo waitstaff. Newsflash! You don’t DESERVE to be tipped for shitty service and shitty food! Much less DESERVE to get good reviews! The rest of us work for our wage. You should, too.
Don’t get so defensive, Yelpers. You can dish it but you can’t take it! Admit it – some Yelp comments are petty and unfair. I know life is “unfair” but the pompous attitude of *some* of the comments is just a bit much when you’re busting your ass to keep your small business going. Direct constructive criticism (in person) is, in fact, welcomed by many small business owners. Give it a try before you all decide we don’t “give a rat’s ass”.
Hey Bart,
Just because they keep dissing BluWater?
And lose the pageboy haircut, Robert Wagner killed that style.
For the anti-yelpers, go to pleyful.com!!! Industry only!
I own a restaurant. I read Yelp, Urbanspoon, Citysearch….all of them you have to; you need to know about consistent reviews. My issue is Yelp is not a real review site; it is a social networking site that reviews. That is a big difference. Yelp decides what reviews are legitimate, and leaves reviews that could be false and allows Yelpers to talk horrifically about individuals and establishments. This is just plain idiotic of Yelp. First the individuals can and have been sued, secondly you never know about one’s craziness or anger issues. I have known individuals to ‘go after’ Yelpers… If you have a problem somewhere just talk to the Manager or Owner…Most places really want your business and would do anything to get you to come back.
I worked at a local bakery that held an opening day party reserved for Seattle Yelp ‘Elite’ members. Almost every product that we normally sold in the shop was complimentary; including baked goods, beer, wine, coffee and tea. Over a period of 3 hours my co-workers and I (about 6 employees) received a total of $13.00 in tips from the Elite Yelp club.
I know that tipping is discretionary. But really? $13.00 between 30 people all eating and drinking for free.
Fuck the Elite.
fucking I, Anon MORON… when I do reviews are because the services sucks or are really good… if your business can’t coupe with it, too FUCKING bad – for you that is.
I don’t have to tell you when you do a bad service, but I want to warn other people to not commit same mistake I did going to your FUCKING place.
As a small boutique business owner with an overall excellent Yelp rating, I can tell you that 98% of the negative reviews we have received (of which there aren’t too many, luckily) ARE from customers who made NO attempt to even let us know they were unhappy during, or after their service. About half of those Yelpers also stretched the truth about what transpired during their service, or outright lied. I think that business owners should be able to review Yelpers, to make things a bit more fair; kind of like ebay lets you rate sellers and buyers. This would help lend more meritt to the Yelpers who are posting accurate and legitimate reviews, versus the passive-aggressive ones who self-loathe and use Yelp as a place to try and have control over some small part of their lives.