What exactly is yelp telling you? I'm something of a foodie and am stunned at how inaccurate the reviews are for most restaurants. Most of the reviews seem to come from a minority "elite" users who are chronic whiners and come off as terribly immature. Its just incredible what people ding establishments for. "Fries came late, this place sucks! Zero stars!"
Some people think the issue with yelp and google reviews is trust. Its not. Its entitlement and a lack of proper criteria. The types of people who gravitate towards these reviews and become frequent reviewers are often people with poor taste and a lack of understanding of what they are reviewing. They're not crowd-sourced Robger Eberts. They're your cranky local paper's film critic who thinks 'naughty language' is the most unforgivable sin.
If anything, services like yelp have made me appreciate the art of criticism and a lot of my dining decisions are now done via professional critics with good reputations instead of the usual gang of misanthropes and weirdos who dominate yelp.
Do you have any examples of awesome restaurants that have poor ratings on Yelp? Assuming a sufficient number of reviews, Yelp ratings are at least "directionally accurate". In my experience, a place with four stars is decent and two stars is poor.
Many Asian restaurants in the Bay Area that I like are 3 or 3.5 stars, though many others with that rating are mediocre. But on the low or high end, it seems very accurate.
Yelp seems pretty useless for mid-range or focused restaurants. Think of a Mexican place that is inexpensive, but has great food that comes out in plastic baskets. Their Yelp page will be full of complaints about the plastic baskets.
There's a great ice cream place near me that gets complaints about their customer service. You're buying an ice cream cone! It takes like 3 sentences; how much service do you need? No joke, there are 2-star reviews like "Stopped by after dinner; the line was out the door and the owner seemed tired. The ice cream was delicious though."
This was the second time I really read through reviews on yelp. The first time I was reading reviews about a restaurant I love and reviewing it myself. And when I say I don't trust yelp, I meant the user base :)
Some people think the issue with yelp and google reviews is trust. Its not. Its entitlement and a lack of proper criteria. The types of people who gravitate towards these reviews and become frequent reviewers are often people with poor taste and a lack of understanding of what they are reviewing. They're not crowd-sourced Robger Eberts. They're your cranky local paper's film critic who thinks 'naughty language' is the most unforgivable sin.
If anything, services like yelp have made me appreciate the art of criticism and a lot of my dining decisions are now done via professional critics with good reputations instead of the usual gang of misanthropes and weirdos who dominate yelp.