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
I do want fries with that!!!
Shut the fuck up! You don’t get to write in to I, Anon. to complain about people leaving anonymous posts on Yelp.
If people are complaining about your restaurant in such high volume that you feel compelled to tell everyone who uses the site, “Fuck You,” there is obviously something really wrong with your place of business.
Pathetic…
Dearest IA,
If you are consistently getting bad reviews on Yelp, you might want to project your anger in the correct direction – Inward. One bad review here and there isn’t going to fuck your livelihood, as everybody has a bad day. If your livelihood is being fucked, it is likely because your business needs a serious overhaul, be it food, service, or shoes.
What 2 & 3 said….
I’m kind of with I, Anon on this. In all aspects of life, I see people more content to whine than assert themselves to those they wish would change. Confrontation and constructive criticism are not the norm; passive-aggression is.
An anonymous complaint about anonymous complaints.
Meta.
Comments made by people who aren’t paid to write them are worth just about as much as they were worth to the people publishing them. (I wasn’t paid to write that. I know … that sucks, but waddya gonna do?) And why anyone would think comments would be worth any more to the people reading them, I have no idea. So relax, struggling food service worker. It’s just noise. What I do have is 15 minutes and a cup of coffee. I’m on break. I’m not thinking. I’m commenting. So there. Yelp that.
One star.
My significant other and I use Yelp all the time to find new places to eat. Nine times out of ten, Yelpers are right on the money. Don’t hate because you don’t get good reviews. Take the hint you’re being given and do something with it besides blaming the consumers, who are actually trying to do you a favor.
Some us use Yelp when talking to the business has completely failed and now we’re reduced to warning people off. If you work for a company getting consistently bad reviews, you can either change jobs or take the feedback to heart and try to address the problems.
Or, you could write a whiny IA. Your choice.
“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”
wau, tell us where you work so we can avoid the terrible, antisocial service.
Or, you could get it right. Guess what, you’re lucky it’s just a bad review – good thing you’re not a doctor, lawyer, pilot, mechanic, engineer, etc. I hear when they fuck up, people get royally fucked. You fuck up, and you get a bad review on the interwebs. Boo fucking hoo.
If I want to put effort into my meal, I’ll cook it myself. If I want to supervise a restaurant, I’ll get into the business. Until then, I’ll continue to anticipate that a restaurant will provide the products and services I pay for, and when it doesn’t, I’ll let the world know. Best way to deal with a bad review? How about doing consistently well. Have a lot of bad reviews? Take the hint, you’re doing it wrong.
I don’t trust Yelp reviews because of their advertising/shakedown practices. They call small businesses and try to sell advertising. After repeated calls, if the owner doesn’t advertise, suddenly good reviews are gone and negative reviews are all that’s left. I use OpenTable, Google reviews and any others I can find. If all sites are revealing the same sort of reviews for a restaurant, I make my decision. But I never read the Yelp reviews.
I’m on Yelp on a daily basis and, like everyone has said, the reviews are there for a reason… hint hint, your service/food and or atmosphere sucks, or it doesn’t. These people’s opinions mean more, and are generally more accurate than a “Real” food critics would be. If you have a 2 or 3 star rating on Yelp, chances are a food critic is going to rate it even lower than that. And… the reviews on Yelp are not anonymous, become a member and private message the SOB that gave you bad rating. Who are you? We don’t have a clue!
I’m on Yelp on a daily basis, and those reviews are there for a reason. Hint, hint, if you have a 2 or 3 star rating its because your food/service and or atmosphere sucks. If a “Real” food critic were to come to your restaurant I assure you they would give you the same or lower rating, food critics are much tougher. And the reviews on Yelp are not anonymous, become a member and private message the SOB that gave your place a bad rating.
http://www.yelp.com/topic/seattle-i-anon…
Eh, it’s understandable. A majority of the Yelp reviews are incredibly mediocre and places are often reviewed only if the person is displeased with something that is more than often trivial. Still it serves its purpose in a very positive way on occasions and helps to bring recognition to struggling businesses that have been overlooked by fashionably un-unique hipsteresque Seattle proto-mooks.
If you can’t articulate yourself properly and have a knack of being “misunderstood” stay out of the amateur reviewing business.
I understand a business failing if it has a majority of bad reviews. It probably does suck. However, when i read one yelp review about a single fly in one soup ever, it still turns me off, logical or not.
The real problem is people posting yelp reviews about things such as: ” I WENT TO COFFEE SHOP AND THEY DIDENT HAVE DONUT AND SPLENDA!? THIS IS A NO COFFEE SHOP ONE STAR. “
Especially since these folks most likely have zero experience in any sort of food service environment, and expect to be waited on like royalty in a casual dining environment. Many reviews are not proportionate to the complaints.
So as a food service worker yelper, yes, fuck yelpers.
At the end of the day, people write what they write… but it’s the end-user who is reading the reviews who have to take what is said with a grain of salt. If you look at the Yelpers profile, and past reviews, you can generally tell if the review is valid or not.
The reviews to certainly be wary of or ignore in my opinion, not just on Yelp, but OpenTable, Amazon and all other sites are the reviews that don’t bring anything to the table, or one or two word/sentence reviews.
I have come to realize that most Yelpers tend to be quite the opposite of “food critics”, as they tend to over-rate, versus under-rate restaurants. I read in some article that most restaurant reviews on Yelp.com are 3.5 stars or higher.
Yelpers who give my restaurant a lower rating because “the place is small” or “you gave the cab the wrong directions and it drove away before you realized the mistake” or “you didnt like the beer selection at the cocktail bar” can all go Fuck Yourself.
The rest of you yelpers are pretty cool, and mostly hot.
An anonymous complaint about people who back their reviews with profile pictures and names…mmmkay…
I Yelp. I give places bad reviews if it’s warranted. I also have my name and picture on the site and if you want to confront me about what I wrote…step on up. Let’s talk.
Requesting that Seattle-ites not being passive aggressive? Good luck storming that castle.
Yelp!ers communicate what restaurateurs do not.
Sure, giving one star to a business because it newly opened within four blocks of one’s fave restaurant is rotten, but far more likely, a Yelp! review will let prospective diners know if a restaurant no longer honors promotions that the restaurant’s stale website advertises. A Yelp! review will tell us that one restaurant’s idea of minestrone is celery in tomato broth; that stuffing three people at a table for two when there are other available normal tables is poor service.
One e-mails the restaurant, via the website, to alert the manager/owner of dissatisfaction; the message is not acknowledged. I now check Yelp! as well as the restaurant’s website (if it has one) and call the restaurant to see if promotions are being honored.
Restaurants are suffering in this economic climate: cutting back on food AND service quality, then placing retaliatory, fake reviews to counter legitimate complaints is not a recommended strategy for staying in business.
the worst thing about yelpers is that they don’t take into consideration how much of an asshole they might be. some people that haven’t worked in the industry (and even some that have) don’t have any idea how difficult they can be, how ridiculous their requests are, and how downright fucking annoying they are. a lot of them don’t realize that the busier the place, the longer ticket times can get and service can be a bit slower. if you have a problem with your food/drink or service… THEN FUCKING SAY SOMETHING. if you’re not into basil and you order something with pesto and you hate it, it’s your own fault and it’s not your thing, so don’t rate the place 2 stars. if your burger is “not the medium you like” because it’s not pink enough, it’s not the kitchen’s fault they can’t read your fucking mind. if your server’s a dick for no reason, then talk to a manager or don’t tip and never come back. nothing can be done to turn your experience around if you just go home and bitch on your computer.
I’ve been a cook at 6 different restaurants spanning over 8 years and have written reviews on Yelp so I think it’s unfair to say Yelpers have zero restaurant experience. The most apt reviews seem to lean heavily to those who were in the business as they have a sense of empathy for the profession.
I never wrote a review for a struggling restaurant when I was displeased with any aspects of it as I know a lot of people on Yelp read my reviews and wrote similar reviews in a weird lemming-like fashion and sometimes a flood of negativity actually managed to drive businesses out of business. I’d just talk to the proprietor and provide constructive criticism. Usually they are so surprised that someone bothered to speak to them in a civil way that they are happy and receptive. Not always but usually.
Still, Yelpers are often lockstep in some sort of a highschoolish need to please their peers and rate things the exact same way. Not all of them, but Yelp is not just a review site, it’s a community and there is quite a bit of pressure to follow a protocol in your average community. The thing that makes it rough is that the Yelp administrator can often be capricious and dictatorial on the overall standards. Often it’s purely driven by the businesses that they are funded by. But, we live in an economy driven by business so it’s somewhat understandable.
the reason industry kids are bitching is because they are losing their jobs over someone whos too pussy to just talk to a manager. an internet bitch sight is making them have a shitty life. its kinda of like the boss whos ask about not having enough flair.
That is a lot of anger for a person who obviously stinks at his/her job.
I know you mean well timtech, but your comment seems ironically more angry.
Life ain’t fair. Deal with it.
Quitcherbitchin’.
Everyone quit using “literally” to mean its opposite.
The problem is, if we complain to your face you might just give us free shit.
Who is still so naive to think that a website on the internet based on anonymous opinions from the general public will provide an honest description of an experience with a business? The internet is 85% trolling lies based off people’s inability to deal with their shit lives (teh remaining 15% – porno), not an actual reflection on reality.
There’s a lot of downright useless reviews on Yelp along the lines of “This Mexican restaurant gets one star because they only serve mexican food and I really prefer Italian.”
#22 FTW
More than anything else, I like response number 33 the best. Break it down – “Who is still so naive to think that a website on the internet based on anonymous opinions from the general public will provide an honest description of an experience with a business?” – Step one, Yelpers aren’t anonymous at all. In fact, many shout from the rooftops what they’re representing and they use real names and real pictures to represent themselves. So… way to go on that one. Step two, and I’ll do this one in your language – if you’re looking for who is that naive, examine the F*CKING world economy. Oh, that probably doesn’t count since your drunken, sycophantic rant spills from a mind shoved so far up your own ass, the smell you’re associating with yelpers is actually emanating from your corroded liver.
“The internet is 85% trolling lies based off people’s inability to deal with their shit lives (teh remaining 15% – porno), not an actual reflection on reality.” – If you suffer from down syndrome, then I apologize in hindsight, but only an individual who is truly and clinically retarded thinks that the internet, the basis for 95% of business, the source of information and technology that spread across the entire planet… the source that allowed you to just shit a braincell onto the forums at the Stranger… is “not an actual reflection of reality.” I’ll respond to that as a nerdy internet user. Lollerskates. Go fuck yourself… and to the staff member of the Stranger who chose this to be featured. This has nothing to do with Yelp – you are promoting the degradation of our city. Do a better job. Hahahaha he said fuck and fart… grow the fuck up.
Do you see what I did there?
Dear Anonymous
I notice you used ‘we’ and ‘our’ a lot in your post. Who is ‘we’? You and the mouse in your pocket? Did you have someone to help you write your pathetic little rant? Be accountable. People don’t write bad reviews just because. Address them and not the general public.
kthxbai
in general I use Yelp to find a specific type of restaurant or a service company I won’t be using frequently.
Usually I read through reviews to see why people are downrating a place (like the review of a dentist that was clearly a review of the person who had owned the practice previously, not the current one), but I will admit if I see a business that has a very large volume of very negative reviews I give it a wide berth. One ignorant rant I will ignore, the ten most recent posts being “bad service, bad attitude, dirty bathrooms” should make you think twice too.
WHOA! Umm… how in any way does telling someone “F U” solve a problem or leave any description of the situation?
Guess what! I review on Yelp regularly. I have over 20 years of restaurant/hospitality work experience – everything from fast local cafe to university barista(at lunch)to pizza to 5 star restaurants and festival serving, cooking and fun! bartending!
I review based on food quality, service, food handling, courtesy, cleanliness, accuracy, product knowledge, friendliness and problem-solving.
Anyone who writes as this article is wrritten is angry and afraid or too mad to look at his/ her own management or service.
Disappearing servers, growling servers, dirty bathrooms, yelling servers, food quality all can be improved. Personal angry problems are a bit more difficut to improve.. suck it up.. go to church/meditation/ yoga/ tai chi.. whatever and get a good look at a reflection of what you are projecting. Only you, the writer, restaurant employee can change.
WHOA! What kind of problem solving is this?
I Yelp a lot. I hav eover 1300 reviews- over 1000 are in food/hospitality/travel/ services.
I have over 20 years experienc ein food service from fast food to barista to 5 star hotel- all aspects.
When I review your restaurant I look at everything I have been trained to provide.
This anger thing.. telling people to FOff is a personal problem. You can correct bad food, tasteless food, dirty bathrooms, dirty tables, fire mean servers.. bu tyou and only you can look at that reflection in the mirror and make a personal attitude adjustment. I suggest hot yoga.
hot yoga cures sex (or lack of sex) blues too! — maybe that’s why this writer hates all of those yelpers (are they getting laid during your slump?). @40, how’d you get your last name?
LESSER SEATTLE now more than ever. put your toys away and act as if you’re capable of BEING in public.
Do you really want customers who are stupid enough to believe that your restaurant sucks just because someone didn’t like a waitperson’s shoes?
I find it hard to believe that something like that would really hurt business that badly.
I don’t know about everybody else, but I often go to restaurants despite (or sometimes BECAUSE) of bad reviews, especially when they are being handed out for ridiculous reasons like there’s not enough parking or especially in the case of a steakhouse that didn’t have any vegetarian options (thank bob).
However, if the service sucks (slow and the order is wrong?) people deserve to know that beforee they go there. I’ll still try you out, but if it proves to be true, I’ll say that in my review as well. If it turns out to be a dirty lie, I tend to write things like “I don’t know what the rest of these crackheads are talking about, the service was great, even though the place was packed and I wanted a completely customized vegan meal that wasn’t on the menu”.
Not everyone who writes reviews is an asshole. Some of us ARE assholes, but are really, truly just trying to give an honest depiction of our experience.
Yelp sucks. The reviewers are usually wrong. They all bashed Toulouse Petit, one of the most successful and delicious restaurants in Seattle, when it opened. Yelpers are a bunch of whiners that can’t write, and don’t know good food if it lands in their open mouths. As a yelper,I know my people.
A friend of mine had a cafe in Northern California. At her opening, she was wildly popular. She worked very hard to be customer service friendly, and had a small dedicated customer base that was getting the word out and helping her build her business. These customers dutifully Yelped and gave her good, honest reviews, and she was happy to hear honest criticism and make amends if something was wrong.
A few months after her opening, she suddenly had a series of truly negative reviews all posted within days of each other. Several reviewers said they didn’t even walk in the door, but thought the food looked horrible – and they should know because they “knew food” (no details given, no depth to their Yelp history). One reviewer had nothing to say about her food, they just said that they didn’t like the chairs and color scheme. One reviewer said that – despite the clear labels on her bakery case – that they didn’t realize that the fruit-filled croissant was actually fruit filled because it had chocolate drizzled on top. (How they ordered it without specifying the filling, I have no freaking idea.)
After this spate of bad reviews, her 50+ good reviews disappeared (a la normal Yelp practice – and many were reviewers with a solid base of reviews). The handful of bad ones stayed and dropped her overall rating to 1 star from the 4 star rating she’d accrued. Yelp was completely unwilling to help.
The walk-ins she had been getting completely disappeared. It really hurt her business (her subsequent douche of a landlord who inexplicably tripled the rent on all his tenants in a recession, forcing them all to break their leases killed it).
So yeah, I feel this IA’s pain. Yelp can be helpful, but it can be manipulated.
if you’re not in the industry then you really don’t know how destructive yelp can be to not only your business but your mental health. just because a restaurant or a meal wasn’t up to snuff to someones opinion doesn’t give them the right to rip the business apart. if it wasn’t for them, then it’s plain and simple. “it just wasn’t for me.” the vast majority of yelp users don’t know how to use the site properly and consider it only to be a site for venting about their HORRIBLE, UNTHINKABLE experience. if you aren’t in the industry and you THINK for a second you understand the bullshit and mental ruin that comes along with shitty yelp reviews then indeed, fuck off.
I’m SO with this IA. Sure, sometimes restaurants do fuck up and people should hear about it. But you can’t please everyone (especially an amateur eater-out who has little-to-no idea on how to behave in a restaurant). It’s one thing if you have a bad experience somewhere, you communicate it to the establishment, and then later feel the need to give Yelp a head’s up. Fair game.
What is fucking ridiculous is when you see someone Yelping on their iphone who refuses to responsibly articulate to the establishment what needs of theirs haven’t been met, but who are completely capable of whining their asses away on a website.
Now, you might say that this is what I’m doing. The difference is – that Yelper would get commended for expressing their opinion directly and openly to their server/chef/restaurant manager. If anyone working in that restaurant were to tell a customer to their face that their requests were totally and completely unrealistic (or just a plain, “FUCK YOU”) not only would a huge scene be caused and that person would lose their job, that would also just be 100% disrespectful.
Thus, we have outlets like IA and blogs to vent about things like this. I say, if you haven’t had this experience directly – shut your goddamn mouth and let this person stand on their soapbox.
I’m SO with this IA. Sure, sometimes restaurants do fuck up and people should hear about it. But you can’t please everyone (especially an amateur eater-out who has little-to-no idea on how to behave in a restaurant). It’s one thing if you have a bad experience somewhere, you communicate it to the establishment, and then later feel the need to give Yelp a head’s up. Fair game.
What is fucking ridiculous is when you see someone Yelping on their iphone who refuses to responsibly articulate to the establishment what needs of theirs haven’t been met, but who are completely capable of whining their asses away on a website.
Now, you might say that this is what I’m doing. The difference is – that Yelper would get commended for expressing their opinion directly and openly to their server/chef/restaurant manager. If anyone working in that restaurant were to tell a customer to their face that their requests were totally and completely unrealistic (or just a plain, “FUCK YOU”) not only would a huge scene be caused and that person would lose their job, that would also just be 100% disrespectful.
Thus, we have outlets like IA and blogs to vent about things like this. I say, if you haven’t had this experience directly – shut your goddamn mouth and let this person stand on their soapbox.
Of all of the reviews posted to Yelp most are actually positive. It appears that people seem to really focus on the negative. Someone pointed out that Toulouse Petit was hated by Yelp. Umm… when? They have a high rating and they’ve been reviewed by HUNDREDS of people. Get your facts straight. Since when is a solid 4 star rating spanning across 559 reviews BAD? That’s fucking excellent.
And with regards to people thinking they’re experts… who ever said that? The purpose of Yelp is to spread word of mouth faster. If your business sucks, people already know that. Yelp is just a way to tell 500 people instead of just 5. But if you had crappy service it’s not like if Yelp didn’t exist people wouldn’t still know about it. And again… more reviews are positive. Look at the active members, look at the profiles of the people who are on Yelp more than once every 3 months. If someone has frequented the site and contributed 10+ reviews, they are more than likely writing about their favorite places. The shill reviews come from people who are whining, the quality reviews come from active contributors. Learn how to read the site and navigate between the bullshit. It takes no more than 5 mins of your time to do so.
I find that the people that piss and bitch the most are the people who are the ones being called out in the reviews. They focus on the negative stuff because it’s about them.
No one likes being criticized. Think back to bad bosses and school. It’s hurtful when done without tact. The cyberworld makes it so easy to be awful with limited liability. Seattle folks are quite a bit anti-social and passive aggressive, but that is not necessarily a bad thing.
I’ve noticed on Yelp the reaction to this thread is overwhelmingly defensive. Again, this is understandable because most people avoid being criticized because it’s uncomfortable. But this is a case of the shoe suddenly forced on the other foot. Both sides being tactful and more articulate will cure the circle of angst. If you can’t articulate well and resort to childish acting out, it’s best that you either refine your communication skills or abstain from posting on public/private sites. Unless you revel in being the instigator of sh*t storms.