The Fries Sucked

I generally do not use social media or restaurant review sites as the basis for my decisions on where to eat. The sites and information can often be misleading, inaccurate, and generally unhelpful. People feel they are qualified to serve as a critic for the simple reason that they eat food. Yet, most people lack basic kitchen knowledge, let alone the culinary expertise needed to truly be a restaurant critic.   

Even a good review can be misleading as they often don’t give enough information to help you make an informed decision. Without a clear definition of the customers’ expectations and then a clear description of the product and how it met or failed to meet the definition, the reviews often lack substance on which to base an informed decision as to whether you should eat at the restaurant.

Occasionally there are helpful reviews, but you must be careful on how you use them to base your eating decisions. Look to the quality of the review, the relevance to you and your food preferences, as well as the amount of reviews the reviewer has made to help establish credibility.

Since we all have such a wide variety of likes, dislikes, and numerous preferences tied to each, ensuring the review pertains to your food preferences is more important than how many stars the reviewer gave the restaurant. Not to mention how your mood can affect how much you enjoy your meal. We have all eaten food that we were “not in the mood for” and if we reviewed it after that food, even a good meal could render a bad review. “I hated that pizza…, because I really wanted tacos.” Accurate, maybe, but definitely not helpful.

I have seen some horrible reviews of establishments that serve great food based on my personal preferences. “Worst Buffet ever!” This is not a helpful critique of a restaurant that in fact does not have a buffet. Yes, I have seen a review this poorly constructed, literally blaming the restaurant for not being the kind of restaurant they wanted. Here’s a hint, if they have a buffet, they will almost always advertise it. Otherwise it’s safe to assume they do not.

In order for a review to be helpful we need accurate and informative information that establishes what the reviewer was looking for, what was ordered, how it was prepared, and if it met their expectations. And most importantly, if it did not, specifically how did it fail?

Saying something like the “The fries sucked,” is not helpful information as it doesn’t give the expectations you had of the fries or describe where they failed. If you happen to like crispy thin cut fries and they serve thick steak fries or crinkle cut fries, your experience will be less enjoyable, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the food. Someone who loves crinkle cut fries may see this negative review and know that their experience will be different as they will get the kind of fries they love.

Service complaints and wait times are other areas the restaurants will get a negative hit, and sometimes it is justified. But if you have ever worked in the hospitality industry you know there are dozens of things that can go wrong that can delay your food and create a negative service experience. So unless you see a string of bad reviews that stretch over an extended period of time, understand that maybe; they lost a staff person in the kitchen, or that the server is brand new, or the computer was down, or any number of things that can slow down the high intensity environment. Maybe they just had an off day, it happens. But that doesn’t mean your experience will be the same as the reviewers. Nobody is perfect and that concept is often magnified in a busy restaurant environment.

Some reviews are meant to purposely harm a business and have no relevance to the food or operations. Often, they come from disgruntled employees, or are based on other outside conflicts that have nothing to do with the business and have questionable nonfood experience motives. Yes, people actually lie online, (and you thought that only happened on tinder.)

So, go ahead and read the reviews, but use it as a frame of reference instead of using it to rule out a potential restaurant. Then give it a try yourself and judge it based on your own experience. If you decide to share your experience and be a social media food critic, make sure you do so in a helpful manner.