I’m actually surprised they still get enough traffic to be sustainable.
But restaurants that delist themselves for whatever reason from the review sites, also delist themselves from me ever going to them.
I'm never going to choose a restaurant where I can't see pictures of the food and the menu before going ever again.
It doesn't have to be Yelp, but if I search and didn't see the restaurant, it doesn't exist and I will never go to it. If I pass by a place and it isn't brand new, yet they've scrubbed their web presence, I'm not going to go.
There's no reason to take a chance, and any place that is trying to hide from it, will just always be a place not worth bothering to find out why they are hiding.
If you see lots of people in a place and it’s crowded it’s probably good.
That's certainly a choice, but you're missing out on a lot by doing that.
It's only the run of the mill restaurants which have a web presence
I feel like (a) people like places bexasue they're trendy, not delicious. (b) People also like to brag and posting reviews give a small dose of whatever it is that people get from posting in Instagram. (c) Most people don't like to be mean so odds of a bad review for restaurants are lower. (d) there are also cultural norms. Check restaurant reviews in Japan in Japanese, most are in the 3.1 to 3.8 of 5 range where as USA Engliah google maps it's more like an average of 4.5
Also people's tastes are different. I recently went to two highly rated coffee shops. Had some of the blandest food of my life. So bad bland I decided not to eat it because why get fat if it's not enjoyable. But it was highly rated. I think if all you get is a coffee and a croissant then you're only judging on atmosphere
I haven't noticed this at all. As near as I can tell, the rating of a restaurant on Yelp is completely uncorrelated with how good or bad the restaurant is.
We managed for centuries without comprehensive reviews of every single restaurant from every two bit individual who thinks they have a valid opinion on cooking. I genuinely don't understand, don't you people ever do anything you haven't been recommended by an algorithm?
I have never looked at reviews for restaurants. I will use Google maps to look for "nearby" places, but I will not look at the reviews.
Beli has been surprisingly good [1].
Some of these problems seems like the cause is because its hard to complain in person. I guess we all get labeled "karens" now for showing any kind of negative feedback in person, so we just suck it up and never go back and maybe leave a negative review.
i dont really rely on yelp, there's to many people with poor to average taste. google maps is ok, but same issue with taste. like the complaints people leave on some top tier restaurants are crazy.
eater has led me to some great restaurants locally and abroad. when traveling ill look at travel and food shows, or look and see whats busy, get local recommendations. one of my most memorable meals in bali was a rec from a kid working a cash register.
The most "real" reviews for restaurants right now is from city subreddits, of all places. Many of these suggestions are from people who live in the city instead of tourists who don't typically eat out (and have unrealistic expectations) or chronic reviewers who must be seen (I was one of them).
Adding stars or grades opens the door for gamification and petty tyrants who want to see businesses burn.
Must be an North American thing
It's the same reason that Meta is still raking in billions a year despite nobody in the tech community using it.
Japanese reviewers seem to understand that 3 is an average meal, and anything higher should be above average.
I wonder how tipping culture of the western world impacts star averages. Americans tip on just about everything. Do we inflate our star rating because it's in our mindset to 'be nice'?
Whereas Japanese are courteous on the outside, but uphold strict scrutiny on the inside. So when they rate something as 3 stars, it truly was a satisfactory meal, nothing more or less.
In my personal experience it's the app that fosters it. Many companies who ask for reviews follow up anything below 5 stars or 10/10 with "how can we improve?" Or some similar questions. This is friction they generate for me as a user if I rate anything below top tier.
Personally for me 5 stars or 10/10 would be service that is so good I couldn't even tell you how to do it. I couldn't tell you how to improve to that state unless the business in question is something I'm very familiar with. Still I sometimes find myself handing out 5 stars because otherwise I have to find something to complain about and I just can't think of anything.
So that is what has made 5 stars for me go from "mind blowingly outstanding" to "nothing to complain".
Reviews look something like “4 stars: I removed a star because...”
Being a Karen is more about "how" you complain rather than "what" you complain about.
(With exceptions, complaining about race etc makes you a Karen too.)
But in the context of a restaurant, well mannered complaints are often well received and encouraged. If the food arrives cold, let the server know. Politely. Calmly. The restaurant wants to know, they want to fix the problem.
Leaping to your feet, throwing the food on the floor, and making a scene out of proportion to the offense is what turns you into a Karen.
+1
I was recently in an airport in Japan looking to use the meal voucher I'd been given due to a delayed flight.
What was available locally was a coffee shop with a very long line (well, not a long line, maybe ten feet, but keep reading), which operated like this:
- The person at the head of the line would advance and speak to the cashier, who would take their coffee order.
- The cashier would then leave the cash register and busy herself making the order.
- There were two other people on staff, who stayed away from the register. I'm not sure what they were supposed to be doing. They didn't take or prepare orders.
As you might imagine, this made for a very slow-moving line.
I wanted to use my voucher to buy some sodas from a refrigerated display in front of the counter. I had no trouble picking the sodas up myself and learning that the shop accepted meal vouchers. The voucher was exact change for the four sodas I was holding, so I hoped that that would be the end of things.
Instead, on learning that I wanted to use the voucher I was asking about, to pay for the sodas I was already holding, the cashier asked me to please line up with everybody else. Since that would have taken at least 40 minutes, I went to see whether a separate wing of the airport might have something.
That didn't work out, but I did run into my family (taking a separate flight), and after some socializing I went back to try and get sodas for everybody, since the competing store we'd found didn't take meal vouchers.
This time, after several minutes standing in line, I realized that there was no possibility of reaching the head of the line before I had to board my flight. So I hailed one of the idle behind-the-counter staff, specifically avoiding the cashier, and asked about my meal voucher. They were still happy to take it.
When I tried to make the purchase, the cashier butted in and asked me to please line up behind everybody else. And I shouted in frustration, "That takes so long!"
At which point, they took my voucher and let me walk off with the sodas. The voucher was still exact change.
I'm not sure what the solution was supposed to be. I find it hard to believe that you're supposed to handle deeply dysfunctional shop staff by yelling at them. But I have to note that this 'solution' saved me a huge chunk of time - and made it possible for me to make a purchase, and the shop to make a sale, that otherwise couldn't have happened at all - while not costing anyone else anything, except perhaps for wounding the cashier's heartfelt sense of propriety.
One lesson seems to be that in some cases, complying with the rules serves no purpose other than to enable actively harmful rules to remain in place.
I've seen similar situations in a number of American coffee shops and fancy sandwich shops. Workers can easily outnumber the waiting customers. The spare ones usually appear busy - with tasks that don't seem to related to getting anyone's order filled. Actually filling an order seems to be an intentionally-inefficient ritual performance. The (presumed) regulars don't seem to care.
When doing work, many of us need simple flowcharts and a good operator knows how to make his staff into automatons in places like this.
They really take their queues and queue order (FIFO) seriously.
waiting your turn, period, is part of Japanese culture.
I get it can be frustrating. especially if your from the USA where increasingly no one waits their turn. Every day I see cars driving down the center lane to pass a few cars and then cutting back in.
Why does a businesses operating in a way you dislike entitle you to yell at them and break their rules?
Maybe the cause is conflating not getting your way with active harm. Refusing to serve you would be neutral, stealing from you would be harm.
I know I'm a minority, but I refuse to do research on a 3.5"x6" screen.
In Tokyo, everywhere but the smallest stand, and often times even them, had reviews on Tabelog. In my smaller East Coast city, every restaurant I've seen within walking distance of my apartment has reviews and their menu online.
Places famous before the internet may get away with forcing their customers to pay in cash and no SEO, but places that completely delete themselves from the web are hiding something. They will also just never come up in a discussion about where to eat because they don't show up online.
I'm not who you're responding to, but this is certainly true in my part of the US.
McDonalds? it's even called a "restaurant"...
Europeans tend to use the same review apps as Americans, so it could lead to the same problems (expectations at least). We do the same things with other review systems like Airbnb.
I've only been a user of tabelog as a person looking for a meal, not a reviewer. So I'm not sure the experience they have.
Well, it's a kiosk with no seating inside an airport. Presumably, there are no regulars either.
Their entire operation is harmful (to them, and to everyone who buys from them) in the same way; they could easily double the number of customers they process by having one of the idle employees making the drinks instead of the cashier.
I think it is best to approach interactions without entitlement. They dont owe you service, and can choose on which terms they will engage.
Your concept of harm reminds me of how some people think they are "harmed" if someone doesn't want to date them, becoming angry and aggressive.
The owner might have a different opinion.
> Your concept of harm reminds me of how some people think they are "harmed" if someone doesn't want to date them
...and? That's a pretty commonly recognized harm. For example, it's the basis of the tort "alienation of affections".
I'm not harmed if a female stranger walking down the street doesn't want to have sex, or if every man doesn't give his wallet, just because I ask for it.
You must to have some legitimate claim to a property or service to be harmed by not getting it.
In the case of the kiosk, their policies are making everyone worse off and nobody better off; this is the easiest possible case for "harmful policies".
If the government passes a law saying they kill two people for having consentual sex, yes, those people are harmed.
If one of those people has a policy that they dont want to have sex with you, that isnt harm.
In the case of the kiosk, the other private party is the one with their own personal policy. You dont get to dictate what is good for them and what they want. what if they care more about the line order than making money? that is totally within their rights.
The point is you dont get to make that decision for them any more than you do for a woman. You dont get to override and decide her preferences are simply wrong.