I actually agree with Sliver in a lot of ways and just a scan of some of the reviews shows how out of touch A LOT of people are. One of the most frustrating thing is when people leave reviews that are not in line with reality of either the business, the experience or they dock stars for things that aren't easily fixable. The business, its owner and the employee's have to end up dealing with it in the long term. Some examples are below and keep in mind that they MAY be absurd, it doesn't mean it hasn't affected the ratings.
A friends pizza place: "Amazing crust, loaded with toppings and TON's of cheese. Picked up hot and enjoyed the 20% discount. Probably the best pizza I have encountered in Calgary, too bad it's far away from my boyfriends house. 3/5
Another friends pizzeria: " The gnocchi used to be amazing, now its like potato soup!!"
"People are right about this place, the pasta, the sauce, the and the wine are all over hyped!" "I always look forward to the veal parm for my birthday dinner and of course they are out of it, again........ what a week"
The above pizzeria DOES NOT SERVE PASTA OR VEAL. They serve pizza and salads, end of story. The reviews go on and on about this stuff but the issue is the names of the business have a similar name but nobody cares, let the online reviews harm the reputation of someone else's business, nothing you can do.
The best ones are people who dine out and pretend they are big shots. They always claim they can cook a better steak, better plate of pasta, a healthier and tastier salad etc. They then rage about the 4 steaks, wine, appy's, tax and tip and "how on earth did it reach $300?" and than leave a bad review. Is the point of going out, really to compare to your cooking? Is it fair to compare how much a bag of spaghetti costs and how much Safeway sells a NY strip for and than apply that level of thinking to a for profit business who pays staff, rent, utilities, taxes?
I know that there are legit reviews out there and people do have bad experiences but come on. You click on some people's names and they seem to want to do nothing but bitch and complain to every single place they interact with. Why live life like that?
Full disclosure: I don't review anything, I frankly don't care and I consider myself a savvy consumer and go to places that I have had positive experiences with. Some people sit there and rank gas stations, every corner store for a jug of milk, dock points for the long line at some ice cream shop when it's 30 degree's out. It's gotten to be too much!
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