If it’s a place in the public eye or that people in this community have shown interest in, I’d recommend writing it up. If it’s a neighborhood restaurant that doesn’t differentiate itself in any way, I wouldn’t bother to write a negative review.
Do you mean, would raise these “not very good” issues with the restaurant or mention it on reviews I might write for here or elsewhere?
If the latter, then yes. I would and I do. I have contributed to the UK’s Good Food Guide for years (since pre-internet days) and am always pleased when I see my comments published in the new year’s guide - I accept that’s personal vanity. I usually post to something online as well (and for restaurants that I know are not up to the Guide’s standard). That’s now HO, with Chowhound before. Sometimes, the post goes also to TripAdvisor and/or to a local forum or review site. I suppose that because I usually research before visiting somewhere new, I rarely come across a really bad place. Last year, I wrote reviews on 66 different places where we’d eaten in the UK and others about places overseas. Truth be told, I am envious of professional reviewers with their command of language - I run out of original words to describe places/dishes - one day, I must invite folks to come up with words that indicate a meal was just OK.
If the former, then generally not. I take the view that most restaurants that are just not very good, arent really interested in getting better. I recall we went to a place about an hour’s drive away that featured in the UK’s Good Food Guide (and still does - score of 3). It was an OK meal, although they had been minor issues with the cooking, the service and the pricing (we reckoned it was tad on the expensive side for what it was). On the way out, the chef/owner asked how it had been. I said it had been OK. He asked what he could do to improve. I said I’d email him the next day. Which I did, having put some considerable thought into it. Almost needless to say, there was no reply, not even the politeness of an acknowledgement.
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I can usually tell going in if the food at a restaurant is going to be “meh” and I assume other people can too. Most of the time when I eat meals in restaurants I have no great expectations of WOW food. I am there for social reasons, or convenience, and not paying very much for the food. Websites like Hungry Onion exist partly because we all know that most restaurant food is just average, and we are looking for pointers for something better than that. So if you walk into a moderately priced restaurant that no one has recommended to you, what are you expecting? I might hope to be surprised with outstanding food, but I don’t expect it.
So, no, I am not going to go to the Internet to document every bite of restaurant food I eat and criticize a place that is competently providing a desired service for being average when I was the one who chose an average place to eat. Besides, I often have very different reactions to restaurants than other people, and dislike things other people love for their own reasons.
I feel a bit differently when I’ve chosen a restaurant based on rave reviews and I am making an effort or paying elevated prices to eat special food – and that turns out to be “meh” or worse. Then I think it’s a good to share information about my negative experience for others who might have read only good reviews. Full disclosure.
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I agree that a lot of places that are mediocre probably aren’t that interested in improving, but in situations where there might be hope, I think you should give feedback. Sometimes mistakes get made and not caught before they get put on a plate. I’ve had line cooks charge my dessert ISIs with CO2 instead of nitrogen, if a customer had mentioned that the mousse seemed carbonated they might have realized before I found it out and had to bust heads. Just recently I had a really nice dinner but felt one of their sorbet recipes was so off as to be inedible, so I left them a note because they probably do want to fix that.
Meh, I just don’t go back to.
Really awful might get some criticism.
But I almost never start threads about bad experiences at restaurants. I just reply to existing posts or threads.
I’ve given some bad reviews when I had to.
When I began posting on Chowhound.com, I really started because I had so many great mom and pops near me that I just had to tell someone about. It was my outlet. I got a rep, (mainly from my brother), that I never gave a bad review, but the truth is, I had only discussed places I was already wild about.
As I started writing about new experiences, well…some were good and some not so much.
I had an owner or two ask me back for a personal “re-do”, but I always declined. I’d rather keep my anonymity and just have them do better for everybody. Right?
Anyway, the “too long, didn’t read” answer is: "Sure. They need to know."
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I’ll cut to the chase with a frustrating answer: Sometimes.
We mostly go to places that may be family-run and definitely aren’t corporate-run or fine-dining. Examples that have actually happened recently:
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On an $80 check for 2, both entrees were tepid-to-cool in the middle and had an unfresh taste, with the texture of being warmed via microwave (desiccated edges + cool spots). When our server asks how [ITEMS] were, we told him, just like when we told him earlier in the meal how great a starter was. It also helped that we’ve had better meals there and that that night’s problems were the type we could explain. He offers to comp dessert, we accepted (and it was good), and tipped the difference. We’ll go back at some point, in all likelihood.
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On a $60 check for 2, the starring ingredient of the starter was made with a frozen product that’s readily available fresh, and the whole thing was flavorless. The day’s special they’d been hyping on their website (which was why I was there) was not being offered. I went with something that sounded tasty – and it was - but that made me realize mid-meal, “I am eating a $15 sandwich and it’s fine but it’s a $15 dollar sandwich.” The service was nice but the problems we had weren’t relatively straightforward issues with the kitchen’s execution. It was our first time there and I doubt we’ll go back.
I wouldn’t trash either on Yelp, regardless.
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Thanks for all these opinions. I’ve been crazy busy so I’m sorry I haven’t replied back. Still thinking about it. Good news is that we had a very good lunch today 
I prefer to read negative reviews but prefer to write positive ones. The negative ones save me time and hassle and money. And when I see my foodie friends in person, I’m eager to learn which places they think are overhyped. Especially these days with restaurant PR teams drumming up so much hype.
Obviously, there’s no guilt associated with writing an honest positive review. But the negative ones are just as necessary, and food media doesn’t do it so I rely on communities like Hungry Onion. Like Yelping and blogging, the audience for these posts isn’t as far reaching, and there is less likelihood of doing great damage. If a forum like HO isn’t the right one to express honest positive or negative opinions, then what is?
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Well, IMO, neither is/was CH. And I tried Yelp and just couldn’t stand it. When a fast food place gets three stars, where ya gonna go from there?
You get similar stupidity with TripAdvisor ratings. If I look at my local Top Twenty, it’s well down the list before I come to one that I even recognise. And whilst I like that place, it’s just a neighbourhood bistro - not any culinary great shakes.
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I had one really awful restaurant experience recently.
The restaurant was less than a month old which means that they are still working out the kinks.
Rather than publicly criticizing them on social media which is rather unfair to a new restaurant, I responded to their website survey on the receipt. I got a call back within a couple hours.
I explained the issues that were mostly service, I explained my background of restaurant management and that I wasn’t looking to rake them over the coals. I basically wanted to give them feedback so that they could improve. He offered to “bring me back” and I said, I really wasn’t wanting that and that I would come back a little down the road. I just wanted to help them make their restaurant a better experience.
Overall, it was a good conversation. I haven’t been back because I don’t eat out all that often it I intend to revisit.
I try to be positive when reviewing restaurants because people are so quick to be critical. If it’s going to be negative, I don’t bother making any comments, I just don’t return.
I don’t think I’m prone to post about “meh” experiences unless there is a thread where everyone is saying they were having great experiences. Sometimes just to see if I had an atypical experience, missed something that everyone else appreciates, or just ordered the wrong things.
I generally don’t post “mehs” for a variety of reasons. But I will respond to posts that brag up places I’ve consistently found meh.
Bad service, dishonest preps, etc., I have no compunction about posting negative reviews.
I dislike posting negative review/opinions except for a few exceptions . . .
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like really high end places ($100’s per nose) that don’t rate it
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places with “featured” specialties most ones of the population would avoid, if they knew. example: Primanti Bros signature burger - a beef patty - piled on with lettuce, tomato, cole slow, french fries, fried egg, kitchen sink, dishwasher, parking lot sweeper machine and the Zamboni. utterly ridiculous.
other than uber-high-end joints, negatives about service are a non-starter. every server is an individual and I reserve the server’s right to have a bad day, but just not when I’m eating there. complaining about the service in yer’ local hash joint / national chain is a waste of time, wear and tear on the keyboard.
How can one judge the validity of a positive review if the poster only posts positives? I think it’s important that any reviewer posts honest and accurate reviews so a reader can get the measure of the reviews and calibrate them.
I tended to dismiss reviewers on CH who were always positive, and especially one who commented that they would not write up and negative experiences because they couldn’t judge others tastes. If that is the case why are their positive reviews valid?
I also don’t buy the argument it’s a business trying hard so they need support. For me if they are charging money for something they should expect critism - both positive and negative Certainly I vote with my wallet but I have no more loyalty to a restaurant than I do to someone who reads my posts.
I also disagree with the idea that standards/expectations should be varied based on location. It’s only right to change expectations based on the price charged so cheap sushi should not be judged against expensive. But just because it’s a sushi place in Des Moines doesn’t give it a free pass because it’s a poor rendition compared to the best I have tried. It’s fair to put things into perspective but don’t people deserve to eat told the best dim sum in place X is actually pretty shitty compared to good stuff in SF or HK etc and this isn’t worth the effort.
Bottom line to me is a discussion board isn’t much value if it isn’t honest and isn’t critical (and I judge the value of posters by reading their good and bad reviews). Catering is a business not a charity.
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A site like this can only survive in the ling term if it contains useful/helpful data. Since a lot of the discussions are about restaurants going to restaurants and reporting good and bad things really helps everybody. And it is also important how you report it - overly positive (e.g. best thing I ever ate) or overly negative (e.g. everything just crap) doesn’t help anybody (and you lose credibility). Just give an honest, detailed assessment of the restaurants.
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In similar vein, there are two restaurant review sites local to my area. Both started out being really useful. Then both took policy decisions not to publish negative reviews. I only found this out when they refused one of mine that was mildly critical of a place. In that case, they explained the policy was new and related to being threatened with defamation actions and that, whilst they didnt really expect anything to come of it, they decided that it wasnt a risk they wanted to take. In the other case, the company also had commercial arms supporting the restaurant industry - website design, for example. It was clear that they did not want to see negatives about places which were also commercial customers.
It now means these sites are pointless. Utterly, completely pointless. If you only see positive reviews, you also have no way of knowing how many negative ones they’ve refused to publish. And, as happens with both sites, you see places with no reviews at all, do you think that that’s because no-one has submitted a review, or they have and it’s been negative.
I find the TripAdvisor type of review almost as unhelpful. They tend to be brief telling you the food was “the best ever” or “the worst ever” (often on consecutive posts). Meaningless, unless you happen to be familiar with the person’s restaurant history, etc. When I write a review, I prefer to just describe what we ate and let the reader decide if that’s a place where they might enjoy that style of food. For a board such as HO, I wouldnt generally describe the food/cooking in great detail. In that case, I write on the assumption that we are all interested in food, more than the average person, and when I say a duck breast was “properly cooked”, you know I mean it was pink with a crispy skin, without me setting that out.
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Enjoy reading negative reviews?
Try this one from Marina O’Loughlin in today’s Guardian. A very comprehensive dissing.
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Yikes, that was hard to read, too scathing.
