Cries for Yelp

On customer reviews and ratings as a restaurant owner

I wish I didn’t have to read reviews of our restaurants on ratings sites like Yelp or Google. I kind of dread it though we’ve been lucky to receive overwhelmingly positive (and loving) reviews and ratings. Customer ratings and reviews and our era’s recommendation culture in general are not going anywhere, so I’m resigned to having to check our reviews from time to time.

I’m thinking about all this because I saw yesterday that one of our Grand Central Market neighbours, Broad Street Oyster Co., posted on Instagram calling out a negative review of its newly opened San Francisco branch from Infatuation SF which admittedly is not a customer review site. (Thoughts on restaurant reviews by publications in a later post!) But it was the comments criticizing Broad Street for reacting to the review so publicly and sarcastically that led me to writing this post. The owner was called a snowflake and worse. The comments section was filled with the kind of scathing comments about his business that we see sometimes in review websites. I don’t think as a business owner I would have posted on Instagram about a bad review (instead I’ll write a Substack post, ha!), but I do understand that this is not just business to us. What we do is intensely personal.

Are we not supposed to speak up because we are supposed to be professional at all times, because we are supposed to be hospitable to all? Shouldn’t there be a social contract that we are open to all with the understanding that people will be open in return? I know some restaurant owners we know such Christian Yang of the delicious Yang’s Kitchen have sometimes responded pointedly to negative Yelp reviews. Some social media managers will say we absolutely should respond but I don’t know many small, independent restaurants who do. While I’ve admired what I consider bravery in this online world, most of us without social media managers of our own cannot muster the energy after taking care of payroll, managing our teams, prepping food, paying bills to do much more.

When we opened new baroo, I did respond by email to negative reviews on Resy, our reservation platform. There weren’t many but we did have a few in the opening months as we settled down. I sometimes tried to explain a choice we made but mostly responded to underline that real people are at the heart of this business. Words matter (to us). But I stopped responding because either people who left bad-faith reviews doubled down on their bad faith or they replied with curt one-word messages of “thanks” and made clear that, for them, their review was a thoughtless, meaningless action to them. They had moved on when I hadn’t.

As an academically high-achieving child with stereotypically high parental expectations that loomed over me, I spent an entire childhood anxious whenever opening a report card. After I took the New York bar exam, I spent the painfully drawn out months until we found out the results utterly convinced that I had failed and even managed to convince my family that I must have failed. Many years of my adulthood have been spent working on issues like my people-pleasing need for external validation, fear of failure, and discomfort with criticism. I’m old now and starting to revel in the freedom of not caring what others think, finally.

But I still prefer not to read our reviews. Kwang informs me usually if we have a negative review. He regularly checks for online feedback across all the platforms, from Yelp to Google to Resy. Kwang is a secure, confident, curious adult who is comfortable googling Baroo and reading obscure blog and Reddit posts about our new adventure. Kwang doesn’t stay up at night thinking of possible retorts to frankly mean reviews not worthy of me staying up at night!

I do mostly try to approach ratings and reviews in a coolly distant, objective way. I try to sift out the useful criticism and observations from all of our feedback, positive and negative, and see where we can improve and adjust our operations. I also try to focus on the outpouring of love and support we receive much more often from our guests. But the thankfully rare and biting reviews and feedback will linger in my brain, and my love of words sometimes means that unloving words stick easily.

“I’m sorry but not one thing was good,” wrote one guest at new baroo on Resy. Resy invites guests to provide feedback that is privately shared with us and not made public. I love that Resy doesn’t make the feedback public because rather than encouraging sensational reviews that are more for clout-seeking with strangers, we get mostly useful, constructive criticism if we get any. For now, most of our Resy reviews are overflowing with kindness and encouragement.

But then there was the junior sommelier from a two-starred restaurant up the coast that left us two very different stars on Resy and a shockingly dismissive list of things he hated about our restaurant, including the Korean sool he ordered by the bottle and then sent back because it was too strong after we told him it would be strong. (This review prompted us to tell our team that when they go out to eat at other restaurants and people know they work at baroo, please don’t be this guy.)

And then there was the recent, delightful Yelp review which started and ended with “BOOOOOOOOOO BAROO”. This is in the same genre of reviews as one I once read for our Arts District brethren, Yess restaurant, that started with something like “Just say noooo to Yess”. As a restaurant operator, I don’t know what to do with comments like these. This is not useful feedback for us. So what’s the point in leaving reviews like these? This is a question for the people who find their own satisfaction/validation in using their time on earth living in this manner. I am not their therapist.

In mulling over the issue of reviews, I’m reminded that the definition of “yelp” is, as the Cambridge dictionary states: 1. (esp of a dog) to utter a sharp or high-pitched cry or bark, often indicating pain. I’m not focused on the reference to dogs to be clear. It’s the reference to “pain” that reminds me that whatever is going on with a person who communicates like this deserves a basic level of empathy. Well-adjusted, happy, mature people don’t leave scathing reviews for small businesses. Happy people send calm, kind and constructive emails to businesses if they experience issues.

One thing that is underscored to me every day working in restaurants is that there are so many different types of people with different experiences with different tastes, like snowflakes (yes, snowflakes! I love snowflakes!) that are utterly unique. We also know that our restaurant is a luxury to most of our guests and it is our responsible to do our best to offer something we think is great and worth the money people are asked to pay. And yet, we also know that not everyone will like our restaurant. Not everyone will like the food. Some may leave unhappy with the experience we offered. We still hope that people will appreciate the effort that goes into our work. We wish that people would understand that sometimes you won’t love every experience and that’s not necessarily someone’s fault.

I feel like I am definitely preaching to the choir because I joined Substack to escape the negativity and sensationalism that you find in social media comments sections. Thanks to all of you who have loved your restaurants in return, have allowed them to falter and also be better. We’re especially thankful to those who take the time to write such lovely tributes to their experience at our restaurants, both publicly and privately to us.

One guest wrote a long, beautifully kind letter to us in the car ride back to Long Beach right after dinner. (She wasn’t driving, don’t worry!) She has since become part of our baroo universe, coming back several times with friends and her husband. We have received so many emails from guests who were generous with their time to encourage us and to share how happy they are. If you find time, perhaps write a note of thanks today to a beloved restaurant or shop or service provider. If they are anything like me, I promise they will remember that message always.

xx mina

reminder that it’s cherry blossom season even in california which trumps negative reviews every time