Restaurant was reviewed on Tripadvisor by someone who sat outside & was ignored & they left rightly appalled. We were closed at the time. 👍
— ronanr (@ronanr) April 18, 2014
Some laughed at Dublin restaurateur Ronan Ryan’s tweet regarding his latest venture, Pizza e Porchetta. As a former waiter and incoming critic, it both infuriated and terrified me. The gravitas of the “look before you leap” culture to eating out nowadays came to the forefront where we depend on Tripadvisor, Menupages and Yelp to decide where we eat. Few seem to appreciate the impact it has on such a delicate business model.
Anyone who works in retail or service will agree that the customer isn’t always right. Most of the time it’s confusion. Confusion turns to anger, anger turns to revenge. Review sites give moaning minnies the perfect place to vent “anonymously”. However, the amount of detail given in said review, it’s easy to remember who’s been hiding behind the keyboard. Take for instance the customer not happy with having to choose from a set menu during the Christmas period. There was a lack of the mention that you were previously informed, and that one of your party decided to deny what they ordered. What’s more is clicking on the reviewer’s profile to be presented with the trashing of multiple eateries and hotels around the world. But some can’t be pleased and the proprietors’ hands are truly tied. The publicity surrounding the spat where Cinnamon Ranelagh called a customer an “asshole” erupted into the public eye, with the cafe trying to prevent boycotts by offering all coffee for € 1 subject to mention of “twittergate”. Cleaver East’s debut review in the Sunday Independent was also of hot topic following Oliver Dunne’s rather personal attack at its resident food critic Lucinda O’Sullivan who accounted of an unbelievably shocking experience. Regarding the former, there are two sides to what is a very extreme story. The jury’s still out for me.
Food blogging is a recent and growing phenomenon where personal interaction between the blogger and the public puts their prestige on par, if not surpassing, that of established critics. One particular Dublin amateur blogger caught my eye. A typical mix of beauty, food and other unrelated topics, the blog has gained its popularity from cheery tweets and frequent updates. Blogger in question tweeted one night to let their fan base know they had a bad experience in a new restaurant, being discreet and not naming where. Following interrogation by followers, the name of the place was disclosed in replies, with a plan not to share the post with the restaurant was hinted at. The following day the appalling review was posted. A genuinely poor experience was accounted for alongside a mishmash of poorly angled photos, the cover for the post being an obviously reshuffled plate presentation. The post started debate and RTs along with the experience reposted to Irish blog circuits, well-known food critics, and Yelping the experience (one star). In reply to those expressing their surprise and shock, “lol! :-)” was the only response. This restaurant had only opened three weeks. It isn’t a cheap operation and one in three fail within the first year. It’s not just rude, it’s mortifying for the restaurant in question. Feedback is crucial as teething problems are inevitable, they at least have a right to know where they can improve.
A fantastic resolution to this issue is QTcomments — a previous Arthur Guinness Project contender. Businesses set up accounts and people can send feedback via an app remaining totally anonymous sans the public overlook. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a good experience in the service industry, but they deserve to know without slander. They say never judge a book by its cover, but websites have made it easy for us to judge a place within a couple of clicks or based on a ranking. A restaurant has a short window to impress and the trend favours concepts over the reliable “meat n’ two veg” which dominated lacklustre brasseries and bistros over the last few decades. Not everyone is going to grasp or enjoy every abstract offering available nowadays. From being given critique to giving critique and seeing a myriad of reviews — the good, the bad and the indifferent — I’m just hoping restaurants are given a fairer run in future.
