Restaurateurs feel helpless against diners' sour online reviews

But some critics are making a name for themselves - even if it's a fake one - offering readers personal assessments of the dining experience. The reviews may be perfectly positive or nasty and negative, but either way, these citizen critics have put the restaurant industry on high alert.

Take Urbanspoon.com, one of many sites that encourage people to review their local restaurants.

Enraged by what was perceived as lackadaisical care during a visit to a popular casual dining spot in the Bay View neighborhood, someone named Pikkled Pink documented his or her experience:

"Our server was absolutely horrible! We waited about 10 minutes for drinks while she chatted at the bar with co-workers."

That was the opening salvo in a review that described the fried butternut squash wonton appetizers as "amazing" and the dinner as "disgusting at best" and "barely edible."

Restaurant owners have always known that word-of-mouth or a negative review from a professional critic could make or break their business. Now, online sites including Urbanspoon, Yelp.com and Open Table allow anyone with a smartphone to judge a restaurant based on the first glass of water and fire off that opinion to thousands of readers, right from the table.

Sites are watched

To keep up, some chefs, sous chefs, waiters and hostesses have started checking in with the online review sites to see what's being said about them.

"Restaurants in the old days didn't have to deal with this," said Omar Shaikh, a partner in Milwaukee's SURG Restaurant Group, which operates Umami Moto, Carnevor, Distil, Mi-key's, Ryan Braun's Graffito and Charro, among others.

"It's a totally different game. One mistake within that dinner can cause somebody to write a negative comment. The reality of it is that good word travels fast in our business, but the bad word travels 10 times as fast."

"It's part of our new world, and there are parts of it I absolutely love and parts of it I'm absolutely frightened of," said Joe Bartolotta, whose empire includes Ristorante Bartolotta, Lake Park Bistro, Bacchus, Harbor House and Mr. B's.

Not every site that invites diner feedback causes consternation. Bartolotta's restaurants are part of the Open Table online service. The system sends diners an email the next day to ask about the experience. Bartolotta says his managers take these comments seriously, looking for troublesome trends such as slow service and trying to fix them.

But in his view, tweets and anonymous complaints that can live forever online don't give him much of a chance to win over disappointed diners.

"I think there's really no way to fight back," he said. "It's sort of a helpless situation. I don't know how else to say it. Somebody's going to go online and post something to Twitter to a couple thousand people. I can't really answer that person. I can't really debate them. It's one person's opinion on something. That's really how I have to look at it."

Sour reviews live on

The Eatery on Farwell is still smarting from one online review. Owner Ryan Oschmann said the diner came in during the first few days the restaurant was open. Yet eight months later, a Google search still calls up the unfavorable review.

That's the bad news. The good news is that fans of the restaurant posted comments in its defense.

Online review sites are "a good way to know what your customers' experiences can be like," Oschmann said. "We do comment cards at the table, and we try to get as much feedback at the restaurant as we can."

Reviews written in the heat of the moment (and maybe after a couple of cocktails) tend to be emotional and inconsistent. Despite the rage in which it was written, Pikkled Pink tagged his/her review with a "likes it" rating - probably because a manager from the restaurant emailed the writer and offered a refund for dinner. (Pikkled documented that as well.)

"The very positive thing, in a way, is that the public is so interested in dining out at restaurants and talking about them. That's a positive for our industry," said Ed Lump, president and chief executive officer of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association in Madison. And, he said, the sites "serve a great function in helping travelers find a restaurant in areas they're not familiar with."

Still, the casual nature of posting comments is a worry. Professional critics taste many items on the menu and generally visit an eatery several times before publishing a critique, Lump said. Online reviews can be done in the blink of an untrained eye, and there's no way to tell if the writer is a rival restaurant owner or a person with a hidden agenda, i.e. got fired from the restaurant or broke up with a former boyfriend who happens to be the sous chef.

Mani Dhillon, general manager for Seattle-based Urbanspoon, said the company monitors the reviews to "make sure they're not using malicious or offensive words" and relies on regular users to help verify reviews. But the bottom line is that the site lets readers "make decisions on whether they're going to believe the review or not."

Sometimes the "reviews" are pure entertainment. Alias posted this about Red Lobster on Urbanspoon:

"All I have to say is that the service provided by Mike the bartender is second to none. With his chizzled sculpted muscular frame I find myself hot and bothered every time I step in to enjoy a dining experience.?.?.?.?I go to Red Lobsta where the bartender is just as steamy hot as the crab legs."

Julie Courtright of Whitefish Bay calls her reviews a "writing exercise with an audience." She posted a humorous "review" of Lake Park Bistro on Yelp.com as an audition for a position with the website:

"If you're in that infatuation stage with a new girlfriend and invite her for a nice night out, DO NOT use the coupons you got for fixing another girl's disposal. Girls: If you join a date at the bar who uses coupons, appreciate his practicality and order the filet mignon. Here's to a special dinner with your special someone at the best restaurant in town. You'll return again and again."

Courtright, who didn't end up working for Yelp.com, continues to post periodic restaurant reviews. But, perhaps tellingly, when she's looking for a place to eat, she doesn't consult Yelp.com.

She asks her friends.