Yelp Finally Lets Business Owners Respond to Bashing

Yelp, the influential San Fransisco-based website that gives every Tom, Dick and Harry a forum to criticize everything from plastic surgeons to restaurants, has agreed to let small businesses publish their responses to criticisms on the site. Previously, businesses owners could only contact their haters directly or—more controversially—pay Yelp to bury negative reviews. But starting next week, businesses like this SF pizza restaurant will no longer be reduced to ironically printing quotes from bad reviews on their T-shirts. Come Monday, according to the Times, they'll be able to tell their side of the story of restaurants such as Otto Pizzeria, about which one Yelper opines: "The best part of the meal was when we walked outside and realized that we had just escaped HELL!"

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By John Del Signore in Food on April 10, 2009 12:23 PM

Comments [rss]

Clickety-Clickety Clack

Oh please- Yelp is ridiculous. I took my Yelp profile down ages ago. I had actually written many reviews, enough that they gave me Elite status but I was so disgusted by other members and the general vibe that I just quit. Yelp has such little standard for reviews that it's truly frustrating for anybody with even a smidgen of taste. For every person who attempts to write an honest and thoughtful review there's some d-bag who probably never even visited the placed they just trashed. Or trashes it just because they're anonymous or think they're being clever. Made me appreciate Zagat all the more!

tmz is evil

I fully applaud this decision. There are too many transplant douchebags on the site trying to earn cool points by being "snarky" rather than honest.

And a lot of their reviews are ridiculously inaccurate and stupid, filled with their own prejudices. One of my favorite reviews is that of the Wendy's out on the Flatbush Avenue mall. The place has always been filled with shoppers, workers from the nearby shops taking a lunch break, and college kids. But for some reason one reviewer gave it a low grade, making it a point to say that the problem she had was with the "types of patrons" in there, like this Wendy's was a dangerous place filled with gangbangers or something. Guess there were too many blacks for her taste at that restaurant.

Stewart

I stopped reading yelp shortly after I started; the first and last review I read was from someone who lived on 23rd street bashing the Crumbs location in the financial district for being "out of the way". They complained that they had to take two trains to get there 'cause only the 1 stops on 23rd street. Nevermind that you should be used to switching all the time if you live off a station that is only serviced by the 1 and not the 2/3. Nevermind that you could just take the 1 to South Ferry and walk.

The reviewer had gone on free cupcake day and said they wouldn't be back if they had to pay $3.75 for a cupcake. Good riddance - stay home you cheap turd!

RedWhiteandBrooklyn

What a business model. You let people trash a place (at no cost or liability to you) and then charge the business to remove the trash talk. Why didn't John Gotti think of this form of extortion... I mean protection. No, I mean... I don't know what form of shakedown this constitutes!

JacqueMehoff

too many Asians on yelp. didn't the NYT did a story on one of them.

alister

lol i kinda noticed this

sluggo

Yelp is a sh*t show and a haven for trolls.

Anonymous Lost Cause

Spot-on. I've looked at it a couple times and every entry I saw had all these contributions from ridiculously chirpy college kids who seem to think they're flexing their writing muscles with inanities about their favorite frogurt place.

Jen Chung

I use TripAdvisor to research hotels and I like the responses from hotels to unhappy reviewers there, like "I'm sorry that you did not enjoy your stay" and an explanation of why things might not have been perfect.

matty

at some point it's just going to be a he said she said thing.

"reviewer: there was a 12 inch knife in my omlette"

"restaurant: no there wasn't"