Emily Driscoll

ENC 1102
Steffen Guenzel
12 April, 2015

The Final Solution to Restaurant Criticism: An Argumentative Research Paper

Have you ever avoided a restaurant because of poor reviews on yelp? What about urbanspoon?
Just because you might not have doesnt mean the rest of the world hasnt either. On the other hand, have
you ever posted a bad review about a restaurant before? The impacts on that one review could be more
detrimental than you think. This can be best explained by this quote from Online Reviews can be a Double
Edged Sword, On the one hand, they allow companies to engage with their customers, learn from
feedback and enter into a positive dialogue. Indeed, ultimately, good quality reviews can equate to a better
reputation and more bookings, and research has shown that companies who engage with guests online gain
a more positive reputation as well as increased numbers of reviews. On the other hand, there is the potential
for damaging -- and sometimes fake or non-reputable -- reviews to discredit and sometimes fatally damage
businesses.. The reviewers perhaps do not understand the impact of their reviews or perhaps dont care
about the future of a new restaurant, and use completely untrained eyes to rate the service of a ranked
establishment based on solely one visit that could have been the worst day the restaurant had seen. From
personal experience, Ive seen first hand what its like to see your hard work be critiqued, as one day as a
bartender my restaurant was filled with army employees using vouchers so regular guests had to wait,
therefore me the only worker in a large section had a lot of regular customers up in arms. Instead of
complaining to the server customers just seem to go out of their way to create havoc and earn free food and
fame. Thus the negative impact of social media on the hospitality industry is due to an untrained eye
creating reviews that are dangled over the businesses head until they are eventually shut down. This might
have absolutely nothing to do with the food itself but rather if one server is slow, busy, or just a bad server
which is up to the managerial staff to address. So a simple complaint to the manager would be very
sufficient.
In order to first explain why this is my topic I feel as though I ought to explain these rating sites

Driscoll 2
themselves. Apps such as Urban Spoon and Yelp allow all customers to be able to have their voices heard
over how good or bad their service or meal was, seems good, and helpful. Upon first look it's all that the
Hospitality industry needs to show further that the customer is always right, however sometimes the
customer is corrupt which leads to clear problems, along with the clear problem that most customers have
absolutely no idea what goes on in a restaurant or an idea enough to create a rating based on their meal and
service alone. In the quote and explanation provided in the article Eat and Tell by Donald McNeil, YOU
too can be a restaurant critic. And not just an anonymous Zagateer, dutifully filling in forms. You can have
fans. You can get the glory of personal thanks from chefs you've deified, or the smug satisfaction of hate
mail from those you've savaged. You can hobnob with sous-chefs at food events. If your soul is for sale,
you can cadge free drinks or meals." this shows the full extent of the leeway for corruption on being your
own critic to a restaurant that will ultimately give you free things if you tell them you had a bad time.
Through saying you can have fans just leads to people looking for attention from others, so they could
post anything just so other civilians would proclaim them as amateur critics. Some also even label these
sites as a forum for people who don't necessarily know what they're talking about (McNeil). Which leads
to an interview with a food runner/expediter from a well known hotel restaurant, she referred to a night that
I remember as I was also a server on the floor that night. The customers kept complaining that their food
was taking so long to come out without even looking around and seeing that every table was sat, there were
three servers, and almost everyone in the restaurant was ordering off a voucher which required a 'see server'
marking on every order. Servers had to go to tables and after every order run to the kitchen, bar, drink
machine, then back to the table. A bad yelp review was posted by a couple who then I saw back a week
later ordering a completely complimentary meal just for having to wait 15 minutes for a sandwich Which
shows clear abuse of the ability to review a restaurant without knowing about the industry while holding
the ability to close a business for one bad or hectic night. The true theory here is to let the food and service
speak for itself.
Leading to the solution, in an article written by Rob Fuggetta, he states that the three challenges
faced are first, creating original content second having time to create it and lastly finding high quality
content. Therefore the argument itself is that customers, when used correctly, can become a strong secret

Driscoll 3
marketing weapon for your business. Leaving the underlying arguments as creating good service, creating
original content, and bring better branding to your business. This tactic was actually used in a personal
work environment I previously had been a part of. A few months ago I had job at Cracker Barrel, who took
yelp reviews with a grain of salt but preferred to use word of mouth as a way to pass the praise of their
good food and service. This seemed to work with their tactics of not calling the police on those who would
dine and dash, as well as offering good discounts to those unhappy with the food and service. My manager
explained it in a way of those who get bad service are more willing to complain as people pay more
attention to those who complain than those who compliment, his theory was why give anyone any thing to
complain about. Though this specific tactic might not be the most cost effective for small businesses he was
just merely putting Fuggettas idea to work in his own way, creating brand advocates rather than wrecking
balls. Furthermore, Fuggetta backs up his claims with use of possible future scenarios, examples of how
people could brand your company and which media sites are most useful, along with the use of pictures to
better paint a vision of your establishment. Which brings me further into my plan on how to change this
poor reviewing system, like Fuggetta, an anonymous yelp associate, created a side project of a site that
allows the only comments and criticisms to be pictures of the food, letting the food in a sense speak for
itself. People, though they go to restaurants for the atmosphere and the kindness of the staff there would be
no purpose for the staff or the atmosphere if the food was below par. Through verbal complaint all non food
related problems could easily be solved, by letting the food speak for itself in a picture it creates a thousand
words of the art of the staff. Allowing people with little knowledge of the business to at least be able to
admire or slam the establishment based on what really matters, the food. Evidence also lies in statistics and
note to retain authenticity with a focus on credibility, which isnt seen with Yelp as they allow restaurants to
secretly pay them to remove a comment as well as a new feature creating the ability for managers to offer
unhappy patrons free meals through online coupons. Even places Ive worked at have offered things to
employees to post good reviews, which is why I both agree and disagree with Fuggettas premise, but fully
believe this new project Dishero will better satisfy the markets need for customer rating sites. These
arguments contradict eachother in a way of using a customer to create a good name for yourself while still
staying humble, tracking your value without influencing it will be hard, if you see a

Driscoll 4
good review it will raise your statistics thus making you want to strive for more good reviews thus leading
to incentives to boost value and creating a mild form of corruption over your consumers.
Furthermore into my solution, the creation of this new site Dishero, based
on review of the site itself and the information given by the anonymous yelp source, seems to be the answer
to the prayers by not only restaurant workers and managers but also customers as well. Through my
interview with this executive, he answered some questions about how the site works and how its beneficial
to the industry and the consumer. First of all the restaurant cant pay yelp to remove anything, and even
though you can photograph the dishes on yelp its not the main focus of the site but rather just one part.
Thus making the core of the site food thus making the primary focus on dish discovery. Another
reason this site is a more useful is because it promotes tips over reviews, thus helping the establishment
grow rather than tearing it down thus preventing bashing and promoting growth. Changing from the focus
on the site itself, I move further to the customer, this site helps a customer on the go, or in a new area that
can type in the food they are in the mood for and sell the restaurant based on whichever dish looks most
appetizing to the person themselves, thus not making them have to take someones word for it but rather
something the customer can actually see. Also allowing a function to create reservations or send messages
to the restaurant about meetings making it an appealing site to those more business oriented rather than just
looking around for something to eat. He concluded the interview saying that discovery rather than bashing
creates curiosity hence my main issue with Yelp itself, that it instead of creating curiosity creates
judgment.
In summation, through looking at the sites Yelp and Open Table and Fuggatas own creation, along
with his thoughts on customers, its clear that Dishero is a way to solve the problems with the flawed
review system. Starting as a way for foreign people to
know what food theyre ordering without having to decode a menu, which is a practice observed in Japan,
using menus made completely of photos. This will allow people to properly utilize a review site without
abusing it and allowing the food to actually speak for itself.

Driscoll 5
Works Cited
Fuggetta, Rob. "How To Turn Customers Into Advocates." Restaurant Hospitality 96.12
(2012): 22. Hospitality & Tourism Complete. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.

Anonymous Yelp Source interview March 10th 2015

"Online Review Sites Can Be A Double-Edged Sword." Caterer & Hotelkeeper 203.4803 (2013): 22.
Hospitality & Tourism Complete. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.
Harley Dubey interview March 12th 2015
Machanic, Holly. "How To Respond To Negative Comments On Yelp." Restaurant Hospitality Exclusive
Insight (2015): 1. Hospitality & Tourism Complete. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.
Akenhead, Rosie. "Don't Let That Single Bad Review Bug You -- Take A Bird's Eye View For Your
Customers." Caterer & Hotelkeeper 203.4805 (2013): 18. Hospitality & Tourism Complete. Web. 24 Feb.
2015
McNEIL, Jr., DONALD G. "Eat and Tell." New York Times 05 Nov. 2008: 1. Academic Search Premier.
Web. 24 Feb. 2015.