Leaving a bad review
It is so absolutely frustrating trying to communicate to people the problems with leaving bad reviews of local small businesses.
So many people immediately get upset and think you’re saying nobody can have a negative opinion or that people can’t take feedback. I have always felt that the majority of bad reviews are useless - long before I worked in food. But now that I do work in the food business, it’s impossible to authentically express why it bothers me so much, because people will just think I can’t accept feedback.
By the way, I’m not writing this about any feedback I received, but instead about a useless bad review I saw of a different local business I love.
I have long said that bad reviews almost always tell me more about the reviewer than the establishment they are reviewing.
One guy recently was defending 1 star reviews and insulting those who criticize bad reviews saying “People get so offended nowadays!”
From my perspective, the person who left the 1 star review is the little offended bitch going babymode.
The thing is - the people who work at your local small businesses are your neighbors. No, I don’t mean literally next door as lots of people can’t afford to live in the same places they work, but they are part of your local community regardless. They are people. Your money isn’t going to parasitic shareholders. (Though you should still be kind to workers of local chain establishments). But a bad review can do a lot of damage to a new small business that is trying its best.
And people make mistakes, have off days, or genuinely want to know if something in their process went wrong. And most people are open to listening and hearing about it! They almost always would prefer you bring it up with them than leave a public review.
Yes, horrible, disgusting things can happen. I have had hair in my food. But I’ll be honest - I still have never felt compelled to leave a bad review. If something egregious happened, I’ll mention it to them so that they can fix whatever caused it to happen and be aware.
The one situation I can think I’d maybe leave a bad review is if I was outright scammed (like charged a lot extra) and after kindly bringing up the “mistake” with them they ignored me (or god forbid insult me) and there was absolutely no other way to get in contact with them or resolve it. Then I’d probably leave a bad review.
This has never happened to me.
The thing about most bad reviews is, in my experience, they are rarely even about the food objectively. They’re not even actionable. So often they are SKILL ISSUES on behalf of the reviewer. YOU didn’t like something. YOU ordered that. Ok, it’s not for you! GG Go Next! Not everything has to be For You. Or god forbid you complain about service. I know that there can be bad service at some places but that has never compelled me to leave a bad review. I’d have to be paying a lot of money for a high class place for me to care and even then, I still wouldn’t leave a bad review.
If a place is really bad, I just don’t go to it again! It’s not for me and that’s OK!
Ugh it feels so good to type and rant about it. I can’t share this opinion now that I work in food.
I really don’t want all my blog posts to be rants. I should write something happy next - for my own sake.