Yelp is where people around the world, particularly in the United States, complain about "bad" service from hotels and restaurants. Oftentimes, business owners try to do everything they can to stay calm in order to save face...
...all except Mark Nery, owner of the restaurant Onefold in Denver, Colorado. He made it a personal mission to go up against the overly negative (and rather unjustified) one-star reviews of his restaurant on the popular review website.
Last week, Eater Denver first broke out the story, compiling his numerous responses to the negative reviews. In an interview with Thrillist, he continued to slam the whole concept of writing negative reviews:
"Sure, reviews can be good for small businesses if they're highly rated," he says. But for people who complain about the food or service? It doesn't do anything."
Furthermore, he also mentioned what he thinks about why people read the bad reviews in the first place.
"I think it's a waste of time. People read the bad reviews only because it's kind of funny to read what people's image of their position in the universe is. Like it was built for them. I know a lot of vegetarians are happy with this place, but I think most of them just say, 'I'll just go someplace else.' I'm not going to write a horrible review of a place and expect you to read it and change your whole concept."
One of the Yelp reviews, written by Jan M., a 74-year old woman, wrote the following review:
Two women friends and I had breakfast here. I was disappointed that they did not have decaf coffee or espresso drinks and only one type of decaf tea. One of my friends and I were also concerned that duck fat is used. A wait person did say that they could use olive oil, which we appreciated. Shortly after our visit I received an email asking for feedback. I gave my feedback about these two issues and part of OneFold's response was as follows " if you don't like caffeine then don't fucking drink coffee." A second response included the following, "cursing helps get the point across .... Doing everyone in the service industry a favor by making sure you think twice before coming into another establishment and acting like an asshole." I am a 74-year-old woman with health issues, which is why I had concerns about the coffee and duck fat. I did not act like an asshole.
I simply do not understand why am establishment asks for feedback and then treats the sender of the feedback with such vulgarity and disrespect.
Nery's reply was:
Thanks for coming in! For the record I had no idea of your sex or age given our exchange was over email. Now I know who you were. Also you took my words out of context. After you drank five cups of coffee then asked for decaf shows me you are not too concerned about caffeine. You were terribly rude to my staff , you actually made one of the girls cry. Given your age I think some duckfat would be really good for you ( I'll let you do your own research on animal fat vs seed / vegetable oils ) also you are old enough to know how to treat people like human beings not like peasants or slaves. I named my restaurant Onefold because it roots to the word simple, hence only drip caffeinated coffee. I have grandparents that are much older than you and they would never resort to using their age as an excuse act like an assh*le, assh*le.
Onefold's Yelp page had numerous other reviews and responses. Not all reviews were negative, though: one user even commended how he handles the backlash, even going far as saying he would do the same thing.
Since the story came out, Nery has received a lot of positive publicity on Facebook and received plenty of compliments from people in the industry. He also noted that it's better to complain in personal, instead of posting near-rants on Yelp.
"Back in the day, if you had a problem in a restaurant, if they got your order wrong [or something], you'd just go to the manager," he says. "Now, people go on these rants online, no one reads it, no one cares, and you don't get your money refunded."
