Death knell or wake-up call? Heed message in bad reviews

Nation's Restaurant News, April 11, 1994

Bad reviews are often fingered as the killer when a restaurant dies.

It's impossible to count the number of failed operations each year that blame their demise on blistering critiques. But finding operators with qualitative and anecdotal experiences about the painful repercussions on business from a bad review is much easier.

Although bad word of mouth from patrons is probably even more damaging than any single critique, there's something about the writeen word, its permanence and transportability, that makes the weight of a negative restaurant review heavier than the benefits from a positive review.

In most cases serious problems existed long before the reviewer arrived, and a review is just one factor in a restaurant's demise.

Still, fickle diners tend to remember a bad review far longer than the number of stars given in a good one. And it is impossible to know how many people will condemn a place, without ever stepping on the premises, because of a bleak critique.

For restauraterurs, the worst part of the entire review process is the many daily variables: Maybe the chef is sick and an understudy has taken over, or management is between chefs so the kitchen is a bit off the mark. Sometimes all of those things and many more can happen on the very day the reviewer visits.

But more often than not, everything is running fine--at least, in the eyes of management--when disaster strikes in the form of an unflattering review.

In New York recently, Shin's, a new Japanese-fusion restaurant in Midtwon, was so disappointing to The New York Time's Ruth Reichl that she not only gave it zero stars; she called it "poor."

Five years ago in Atlanta a reviewer called City Grill "the Queen Mary on training wheels" in what the writer saw as a pretentious effort to mimic luxury-cruise ship dining on land.

In Chicago, about three years ago, Chicago magazine dropped Jackie's to 2.5 stars after it had won a string of 3.5-star ratings.

Operators at all three sites were initially stunned by the critiques. But after the shock wore off, they focused on the work at hand.

Jackie Shen, owner of Jackie's, said that what made the Chicago magazine review especially troubling was that it came during a time of poor cash flow and other financial pressures at the restaurant, much of it related to the recession.

But after calling her staff together to assure them that the restaurant would survive, she looked at the review as constructive criticism to see what she could improve upon.

To Shen, the review served as a wake-up call. She admitted that she had taken her eye off the ball in the kitchen and in operations while grappling with the restaurant's financial stresses. She responded to the review with new menu items and press tastings.

While business has not necessarily recovered and while she has yet to recover the restaurant's lost star, Shen said she is heartened that patronage is strong and that she suffered not staff defections.

Steven Gold, director of Shin's in New York, implemented similar strategies. After Reichl blistered the restaurant with tales of excessively long waiting times between courses -- exacerbated by the resignation of a waiter who quit immediately after taking the reviewer's order -- and poor-tasting food, Gold called t'e staff together to let them know the restaurant was not going out of business and would certainly outlast the impact of the review. Moreover, Gold said he received numerous calls from partons who felt the review was way off base and undeserved.

He even heard from some operators who consoled him by pointing out that even bad attention is better than no attention.

"It's when they fall in the middle between great and terrible that nothing happens," Gold said, chuckling.

But then Gold looked at some of the dishes that Reichl hated, and he examined her problems with table service at Shin's. The net effect was that certain dishes were changed, table service was improved and, contrary to expectations, business went up.

Operators who survive bad reviews deserve to be applauded.

And savvy operators will look beyond the sarcasm and the barbs to address the ugly truths about their operations.

After all, while restaurant reviewers may not be objectie, they are not mean-spirited people with nothing better to do than make fun of their subjects' life's work. Bad reviews don't have to be the kiss of death if operators use them as a learning tool.

"I remember when I was a kid, my parents went to see 'Fiddler on the Roof,'" Gold said, "and they loved it. But the next day the review came out and said it was a horrible musical.

"Now, look at how many years that has been around."