One guy on Yelp ...

ohhoee · 4 months

Here's a link to the review they're talking about http://www.yelp.com/biz/joe-dough-manhattan#hrid:0thxeBE0M6HJzBIbFdzg4A

Nawti · 4 months

I talked to a owner at a restaurant once who told us why he tried to ignore reviews. When Yelp first got big he was paying a lot of attention to it and tried to address all the complaints, but then two things happened that made him realize that it was ridiculous to pay attention to the reviews.

He got a negative review from a customer who's gf dumped him in the restaurant (even though IN THE REVIEW the guy said the food was good).
He got a negative review from a customer who wanted to eat his food in the bathroom and the restaurant wouldn't consider the bathroom a proper serving location. He even pulled out his phone and showed it to us. The guy wrote up, in his review on Yelp, that it was an "unfriendly" business that wouldn't serve him while he was taking a dump. Imagine that.

I'm not big into reviewing things on Yelp, but I'd probably have given it a good rating just for the laughs from talking to that guy.

Edit: grammar and such.

Venerac · 4 months

If I was hungry at the time, that sign would actually make me want to try it. Brilliant marketing.

hinesh · 4 months

To be fair it was also the best meatball sandwich he has ever tried. He has only ever had one.

azdak · 4 months

Joe Dough sandwich shop. East Village, NYC. Their sammiches are fucking delicioso.

porterpot · 4 months

They should have posted his username.

NyaR · 4 months

Yelp is so fucking evil. I work with small businesses locally and I've seen owners driven to near suicide when every positive review is filtered and negative fake reviews are spotlighted.

The entire business model is a scourge on small business owners in the US. It is like paying protection money to the mob. And when you talk to them they say their infallible algorithm is doing its job and it cannot be questioned. This stupid algorithm kept a 1 star review from a reviewer with one total review on my dad's business for 9 months that read "I called and asked about x service, they told me they don't offer it and hung up. Rude!!".

I even had a review for my own stuff from a non customer (just someone I had an email exchange with) claiming I give rude customer service. I posted an owner comment with our email exchange showing he's not a customer, instead yelp removed my comment and kept his fake review on. I tried talking to yelp and they politely told me to fuck off and bend over for the algorithm. So I did the only thing I could, I ran my own smear seo campaign on the guy's name, phone#, email address and this fuck then tried to blackmail me into making him three websites that show up #1 on search engines for the removal of the review. Yep, that's what it comes down to, non customers using yelp to blackmail business owners into free services.

TLDR: Fuck yelp they are like a plague on all small business owners in the USA. They are a sensationalist website and are directly contributing to our shitty economy by scaring the fuck out of business owners. Your whole business could die because of these fucks.

dexbot · 4 months

Yelp is an extortion racket.

tempe85 · 4 months

Some online reviews are ridiculous. This may be a bit off topic, but I was looking over some reviews of Diablo III on metacritic yesterday, and one guy wrote: "I don't like the fact you have to be online to play, but the game itself is great." Score: 0/10

o2d · 4 months

And that is why I fucking hate Yelp.. bunch of self-righteous, entitled, always-mad fucks posting their raging rants..

iancole85 · 4 months

The review in question

PsychoSeven · 4 months

I would eat at a place that had this sign rather than a bunch of positive reviews.

OnTheEveOfWar · 4 months

Yelp is like the mafia. If you don't pay them a monthly fee they will leave your negative reviews at the top of your page. Once you pay them they bury the negative reviews at the bottom.

wholetyouinhere · 4 months

Yelp sucks because the loudest and most prolific voices are going to be passionate idiots who don't know what's good and what isn't, and only rely on their stupid snap judgements and extremely narrow expectations. There's a reason why "restaurant critic" is a job description rather than a hobby.

agentup · 4 months

Hah this is great, a lesson that sometimes turning into the skid is the best way to go.

Regarding Yelp, I think it is a great site, one I use a great deal. BUT I understand that much of it, is up to me to filter through the BS and figure out what places are good quality.

aBEARica · 4 months

The review in question, if anyone was wondering "Probably the worst meatball sandwich (special of the day) I have had in the tri-state area in my 32 years of living here, especially for $12. In all fairness I have not had the other sandwiches but with prices like that coupled with underwhelming food and slow service this will be a skip in the future. Joe Hell No!"

TheRealBigLou · 4 months

Yelp is the worst review website on the internet. I would definitely support this restaurant!

Baron_Von_Gagenshatz · 4 months

Yelp is the most blatant blackmail; one-off negative reviews can sink a business's profile while anyone with so positive an experience that they want to sign up, leave praise and call it a day has their review filtered. The only reviews that stick are the super-negative ones and good ones that do stick have to come from the nitpicking, hyper-opinionated crepe hangers that live their lives on the site with this delusion that their destiny is unfulfilled unless they make these little knickerbocker remarks about every business they've ever patronized.

Go look. Look at the people with hundreds of reviews and you'll quickly realize that all of them are TRULY AWFUL; the kind of people that if you had to sit behind them on the bus while they were bitching on their phone with their friends, you'd switch seats or, barring seats or standing space, ride on the roof. The kind of people that make you wince as they chew out a waiter for the parking on the street being too expensive.

I'd link to specific examples, but, fuck Yelp. However, if you feel it's absolutely necessary, browse some reviews for five minutes and your blood will be ROILING.

NominalAeon · 4 months

Demand to see life's manager! Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons!

HaveaManhattan · 4 months

Didn't this just happen on Bob's Burgers?

drunxor · 4 months

I stopped going on yelp a long, long time ago

Adroite · 4 months

Worked at a great restaurant for years and would occasionally read them for grins and giggles. People are rarely motivated enough to logon to some website and make a review for a positive experience. On the other hand, if people have a negative experience... well, they want to share that... with everyone.

Of those negative reviews, I'd say at least half were flat out lying. Some reviews would refer to items we didn't even have! And of the remaining, another healthy chunk was never even brought up with the server or managers. It is nearly impossible to fix a problem when you don't share it, and many times the customers don't want the problem fixed... they want a free meal. Give the server, the restaurante a chance to fix the mistake, if they don't, the meal should be comped. If the restaurant is unwilling todo that, then sure, a negative review is appropriate.

So yea.. I take those reviews always with a grain of salt.

corylew · 4 months

I honestly want to buy that sandwich now.

[deleted] · 4 months

Found the review: http://www.yelp.com/biz/joe-dough-manhattan#hrid:0thxeBE0M6HJzBIbFdzg4A

funny

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