The Reverse Dangers of Restaurant Reviews
Although a great lover of travelling and eating out, I rarely write reviews of the places I visit, the restaurants where I eat, the hotels I overnight in. It is enough for me that the food was enjoyable, that the room was comfortable, that the city or town had places of interest. Aside from which, there are so many reviews floating around the virtual world, boosting internet web sites and search engines more than the businesses being reviewed, it seems to be an overload. That is, unless I come across a brand new business, one which has not yet broken through into the public gaze, or been recognised by those who search the internet for things to do, places to go. I will admit to having, several years ago, boosted a new Afghani restaurant almost to excess with friends, during the first pandemic months, so that they would stand a chance and survive. We were, in no small way, successful.
My resolution in not adding to the dross circulating online – and by that I mean reviews designed to harm, reviews where the person writing was not present, reviews where money or favours have changed hands or someone calling themselves an Influencer is involved – has good reasons, and one of those reasons came back to visit me recently.
There was a time when I gave the occasional nod towards a restaurant or bar which I had especially enjoyed, or which had not come up to the minimal standards of previous reviews. One of these was a restaurant specialising in Spanish food in a major city in northern Germany. The reviews were good, the star ratings tended to be high and, to be fair, the food and atmosphere were of a good standard. I wrote this in my short review at the time, but only gave them a Three Star rating.
The problem was the service. The problem was that they did not have any service, to be more accurate. Customers were expected to come to a small serving area immediately inside the entrance – there was seating both inside and out – read a menu stuck on a wall behind the worker’s head, order, and then also collect from the same area. In essence, the same as a common burger joint, but with less room to stand around. At the height of business this area was packed with people trying to read the menu, trying to get into the seating area beyond, trying to order or collect their meals. It was highly unpleasant and, if I had not been part of an arranged group, I would have left them to their own devices, and eaten elsewhere.
I wrote my Three Star review, posted it, and thought no more of the incident. Until, that is, I received a message from a certain map and review search engine – of global proportions – telling me the owner had objected to my review, and it was being considered for deletion. There was, they claimed, no proof that I had been present at the restaurant, and the owner was claiming defamation which, for European reviews, is a very light matter to claim and have enforced. The commercial interests of businesses, when it comes to online reviews, take priority.
Clearly the simple thing would be for me to prove that I was at the restaurant, and that my review was fair and justified. And exactly there lies the problem. The owner objected to the review and claimed defamation six years after it was published. The internet service which published my review put it on Pending, and asked me to justify my review, and prove presence.
For me, proving that I was at the restaurant six years after the review was written is unreasonable. It is almost like some rogue government demanding that you justify your social media posts for the last five years before they will grant you a visa. What is reasonable to expect, however, is that a company seeing a review they object to would respond in considerably less than six years. I would hone that down further, to within six weeks at the most. My review, however, remains as Pending which, as anyone with a foible for silly plays on language knows, means it has effectively been deleted, but not deleted in such a manner that I could object on a more legal basis. Some call it shadow banning, others would go further and claim censorship, which I do not really believe counts in this case.
Regardless, the major search engine company has made its decision, the restaurant has pulled its very late move, and neither one of them need concern themselves with my patronage again. There remain, as we all know, many other means of reviewing the world and its ways – this publication might easily be one of them, social media another – including word of mouth. If it works to boost a restaurant, it can also work the other way. And, really, table service in a restaurant on a major tourist thoroughfare is a minimum needed to gain more stars than your average burger bar.
