people that YELP are scumbags

idk they keep those places pretty cold.

The beer was cold
But so was the glass
It's making me crazy crazy

― love is how's life tonight (how's life), Wednesday, 30 July 2014

beat me to it

Planned #3 stop for el Valley Sammich Crawl

Closed for Orthodox Easter. Looked just ok from the outside, but George said they had a really good something....

maybe next time....

(3 stars)

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/08/04/hotel_fines_guests_for_negative_yelp_reviews_don_t_stay_at_union_street.html

We've reached peak ramen in SF:

http://www.yelp.com/trends?terms=tacos%2Cramen%2CBurritos&city=san_francisco&category=restaurants

Very cool tool, btw! Another one:

http://www.yelp.com/trends?terms=burger%2Cpizza%2Cnoodles&city=san_francisco&category=restaurants

#3, the food is horrible. every person that has told me good things about this place is overweight.

I will admit I'm a food snob but this place should make a Midwesterner run away crying in my opinion.

It was so bad I actually boxed it all up and donated it to a homeless man on the street.

Worst dining experience I've ever had.
If you take away my silverware from the first course, please replenish it for my entree. I sat there for 20 minutes trying to figure out how to eat a lobster with my hands. Not to mention that a dozen servers walked by while I'm trying to flag somebody down. I finally gave up and asked a busser for my food to go.

The menu is as Italian as Britney Spears.

that b&b thing -- i actually have a room booked at a hudson, new york b&b for a month from now, and when i heard about a "hudson b&b with a $500 fine" i got really nervous and scrambled to make sure the place wasn't the same one i reserved. it's not.

I just left this establishment with a group of my friends and we just got assaulted by some crazy girl and her boyfriend. The girl threw a full coke can at my friend's head , spit in my other friend's face, yanked our hair, and was swinging at us. At one point her boyfriend was also swinging at my female friends. While all this was happening, the employees just stood there and did not even ask them to leave. We even begged them to call the cops and they told us we could call the cops ourselves. They do not care about the safety of their customers.

forgot what thread this was and thought that actually happened to you carl and I was like o_O jeez

Lord no. Jeff is getting me a burrito from there as I write this so cross your fingers he makes it home unscathed.

frontera grill?

Ha and the crazy girl was... Rick Bayless!

What not to eat: The free water. The staff stores their cups filed with water in their fridge. To say the water is inedible would be an understatement.

Be careful when calling in...if you get the wrong location they will ask you to go to the other to pick it up!! And will refuse to make your order at the intended location. Ridiculous policy. Even though I live and work within minutes of this place I won't be coming back. Non-friendly customer policy.

This place....(small bit of drool is forming) as I fall back in my seat from foodgasm after foodgasm when I think of all the great meals and great times I've had here.

hahahah wait, is that really saying, this place is bad because if you order from them, they have the food ready at the location you ordered it from? ridiculous policy!

What not to eat: The free water. The staff stores their cups filed with water in their fridge. To say the water is inedible would be an understatement.

― flatizza (harbl), Thursday, September 4, 2014 8:18 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Assuming this is because the flavors in the fridge permeate the water?

I think it is because the water has been used for filing.

Inedible liquids and non-potable foodstuffs.

people that YELP are scumbags
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/14916/20140905/court-sides-with-yelp-manipulation-of-reviews-not-wrongful-use.htm

Friends of mine opened a cafe and I was considering advising them to avoid Yelp entirely -- anyone have thoughts or anecdotal experience relevant to that?

I enjoy those "they hate us on Yelp" stickers that some establishments put up, tell them to do that.

you guys i wish i could share how often i am in meetings where tripadvisor reviews are read aloud/my hotel's tripadvisor ranking is discussed/obsessed over

i am always a little creeped out when hotel/b&b/etc employees implore me to leave good reviews for them on tripadvisor. like it taints the whole interaction a little, lays bare the mercenary foundation of the hospitality/guest relationship.

I feel a similar thing with Taco Bell and Home Depot, where they remind you that you can be entered into a chance to win amounts of money if you go online and complete surveys rating your experience.

Any other stores that do that, by the way?

Walgreens

you guys i wish i could share how often i am in meetings where tripadvisor reviews are read aloud/my hotel's tripadvisor ranking is discussed/obsessed over

― ╲╱\/╲/\╱╲╱\/\ (gr8080), Friday, September 5, 2014 12:45 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh man, i forgot about this shit, yes. between that and time obsessing over the keeping-up of franchise standards ("we could lose the flag!), it's no surprise nothing important ever got accomplished in any hotel staff meeting i ever attended.

Friends of mine opened a cafe and I was considering advising them to avoid Yelp entirely -- anyone have thoughts or anecdotal experience relevant to that?

― 'arry Goldman (Hurting 2), Friday, September 5, 2014 9:07 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not sure you can even opt out of Yelp once your on there. And every business in the phone book gets put up there. An organisation I managed which had no customers and no reason to be on Yelp had a profile that Yelp had created. Despite weeks of emails and so on I couldn't get them to remove it. You just get barraged with messages about how best to engage with your customers and so on. I have hated Yelp ever since.

just this morning i was in a meeting where several managers were bemoaning the fact that it was a BRAND STANDARD to have the heavy-duty cotton "hand towels" (expensive and nice but still disposable paper towels) in all restrooms because:

• 1) they are very expensive and "people take a bunch instead of just using one to dry their hands" so its racking up a huge bill
• 2) people keep throwing them in the toilets and then they clog the toilets

then the topic of why they were ending up in the toilet was revisited, and people speculated various explanations until the director of engineering spoke up and said "people are using them as a butt gasket" meaning they were placing them on the toilet seat so they wouldnt have to put their bare ass on the toilet seat, then it only made sense to put them in the toilet and flush

then it was discussed why we don't have those disposable toilet seat covers seemingly every public restroom in the country has, and eventually it was decided that we would purchase and install them in all public restrooms, culminating in a top-level manager literally exclaiming "we solved a problem today, guys!"

this at a "luxury hotel" that just wrapped a $35m renovation.

baahahahhaa, thank you for that story.

I love those expensive paper towels

food.......gasm

(small bit of drool is forming)

(small amount of drivel is forming)

Just an FYI.....The girl who puts the toppings on doesn't understand the word "extra". I ask for extra onions EVERY time and she NEVER does it. Hopefully the Sub Nazi will replace her soon. :-)

- Christopher W.

like u-boat?

sub-nazi at best

Say Prochnow?

http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsL/10103-27.gif

The cute girl at work told me she's a Yelp Elite. What the

If this review were just about the food, it would be five stars all the way. But I think it's important to also discuss the dining experience, which really fell short, hence my three star review. First of all, the space feels like a hotel lobby. I guess it's a reflection of L'Etoile's old menu - boring and safe. It's perfectly nice, but it's bland and lacks character.

Second were the other diners and the servers. I've always known that L'Etoile is a special occasion restaurant. At $500/meal for two, which is what our total bill was with tax and tip, the average Madison diner can't afford to eat at L'Etoile more than once or twice a year. So I shouldn't have been surprised that the other diners there the night we were were mostly special occasion diners. However, what did surprise me was the total lack of dining sophistication. These diners were clearly not true foodies, and it was clear that this night out was their one big fancy meal of the year. If that had been all, then good for them. But the problem was that the servers seemed to dumb down the food and wine descriptions for the entire restaurant to the lowest common denominator. It felt like amateur hour to me. I'm also not sure if L'Etoile will be able to sustain the new menu concept. As you would expect, we were there for about two hours because it takes time to get through seven courses. When we ordered the seven courses with pairings, our server seemed pleasantly surprised. That struck me as odd, but over the course of our meal it became clear that we were the only table that did go for the full tasting menu. Not only that, but two tables of diners came in, were seated, looked at the menu, and then left without ordering.

So again, I was disappointed in L'Etoile. I know that there are diners in Madison who can appreciate the concept because I eat with them at Forequarter and Papavero, and mingle with them at SloPig. But for some reason, L'Etoile isn't getting them in the door. Maybe they need to reexamine their brand. In the meantime, if I want a Tory Miller dining experience, I'll be at Graze where the food is also great, and the dining experience is better.

Same reviewer also encountered a non-foodie at another local eating establishment

"In fact, I was shocked that Eno Vino had 4.5 stars on Yelp, but then I listened to the other diners around us and I'm pretty sure that their palattes weren't exactly sophisticated. Case in point, the woman behind me asked the waiter if the pork belly was really intestines. When he explained what pork belly was, she seemed incredibly impressed. In fact, she even said, "Fancy!" in a completely non-sarcastic way. So maybe Eno Vino has an overly inflated rating on Yelp because its diners think the food is "fancy" and don't know how well-prepared "fancy" food like pork belly should actually taste?"

I mean, I dunno, maybe Yelp would actually be better if people just reviewed the other customers instead of the restaurant itself.

i have no idea how brian eno's pork belly would taste tbh