So I have to admit that I try to go to New York once a year. When I go, I totally dork out on preparing a list of restaurants that I actually divide into certain areas of Manhattan. When I'm wondering about town, I can whip out my list, having previously looked at all the reviews, and choose a restaurant.
To that end, I use several review websites, but I do jump to Yelp first. Yelp has many reviews, but mostly the average Yelper is 20 to 35 with truely nothing better to do than to comment on their latest epicurean adventure.
Actually, when I decided to put a BLOG section on our very own website, I thought I would present a well needed point of view from servers, kitchen staff and all those folks that serve Yelpers and other customers. That was my intention, but I have to admit I also use such rating review sites. Having said that, I feel as though some customers expect dining perfection from McDonalds to French Laundry and within this group of people, only perfection exists.
These are the folks that threaten to "Yelp" you if you don't give them something for free. They will threaten to "Yelp" you if they didn't get asked to get a free refill on Soda or Ice Tea, they will threaten to "Yelp" you because their meal took too long or because the line on a Saturday took to long to wait in.
Since the point of the Blog is to share inside restaurant stories with you here's one of those stories: Two guys came in and said that they wanted two cups of soup and a 1/2 sandwich each. One of the gentlemen inadvertently found a small piece of clear plastic in his soup. Immediately we appologized profusely and then replaced the soup. They finished their quick bite and when the bill came, they were upset because though we gave them free soup, and had replaced it, they also wanted a free dessert and if we didn't give it to them they threated to "Yelp us." I didn't know until I heard this story from the sad server that this "Yelp threat" even existed.
I eat out a lot and I have to say, I have had bad cocktails, hair in my food, painfully slow service, cold food delivered, overcooked this or that, but to be honest, things definetly happen by accident. No one means to serve anything less than perfect, but sometimes things happen. The trouble is, everyone is so bloody full of high expectations that the slightest mistake and people flip out! I have never threated a server or a restaurant with anything. If someone asked me, I would have said, you know it was unfortunate, but we found a small piece of plastic in our soup, but they handled the situation professionally, and the meal was lovely. I would never say what that patron said to the server.
I am not saying that it's ok to have plastic in the soup, but things occasionally happen. We serve 100s of people a day at Ferry Plaza Seafood. To be honest, I don't know why one person can say something out of 98 reviews and it can really bother me. I mean really really bothers me. I think I've figured it out though, I don't think it's about the food or the restaurant, I think it's about the attitude that folks have that the world owes them something. You have to know, how much we try to make your visit to our restaurant as perfect as possible. We have people that live in town that come in at least 2 times a week to have oysters and wine and whatever we recommend that day (Thank you Dick and Barbara). They are like family to us. We also have tourists that have come in to try something different each day of their visit to San Francisco and we just love them so much.
Everybody calm down, be kind, don't be so angry and empowered! Have a glass of wine, and stop with the Twittering, and the Face Booking, Yelping, the Blogging about all the things you hate and are disatisfied about. Remember, having a meal out is an adventure and an experience take time to take in the whole experience and relax.
