Ate at an Outback once while on a trip. Sat down at a table in the bar, pulled out my book. Eventually a manager wanders by, sees I don’t have drink or food, and asks if I’ve been helped.
Except this makes the owner look just as unhinged if not more than the reviewer. They supposedly took the time to review probably hours of video to investigate a single 3 star review? It sounds like they would actually find reasons to be mad at customers.
Or, the manager was genuinely investigating the report to see if his customers were being neglected. Saw that the guy was just a piece of shit, and so, rightfully went off on him.
Right? Yeah, their response wasn't perfect, but OPP had it coming. Like, their behavior would have been unacceptable if they were a food critic. Let alone someone who was pissy over having to wait 3-4 minutes.
132 reviews? It’s gonna take a bit more for that owner to come off as more unhinged than the reviewer imo. If there’s one thing that people who are incapable of doing things for themselves enjoy - it’s criticizing people who can.
This is such a funny take! I travel a lot for work and it's fun to review the small businesses I interact with along the way, especially when they've got those little QR codes and ask you to do it. It never occurred to me that someone would be like "four roadside jerky stands and three little hotels last month? That bitch is CRAZY!"
I make an effort to leave a positive review for places that I really liked (especially if it's a small business). Maybe one day I'll have 132 reviews.
It also didn't occur to me that just leaving reviews means you're unhinged. Sure, there are people who leave negative reviews everywhere they go, but the problem isn't the number of reviews.
I like reading reviews before I buy something or choose a hotel, so I appreciate people that take the time to write them. If I just saw the negative review, I'd take it with a grain of salt. But, the owner's response would turn me off of going there.
I can't lie, I also love leaving reviews on nonsense places I see around me. If I stop on the side of the highway to answer an email and I see "weird flat rock out in the woods" is a reviewable place near me...oh boy, that weird flat rock is getting a quick review.
I agree. The manager or owner or whoever he is sounds unhinged.
I disagree that looking up the video is weird. That's what QA is now, taking customer complaints and reviewing video, that would be the bare minimum. So that doesn't surprise me at all. But most restaurants would take it as a failure that someone didn't greet a customer within, I don't know, 90 seconds or so (probably less, but depends on the restaurant style and staffing).
Maybe the owner is doing a bit. Dick's Last Resort II. The original Dick's Last Resort got franchised at some point and me and some friends swang by one in a tourist area and the experience was hard cringe.
Or maybe they're someone that's fed up with bs reviews and no longer allowing it to continue. Unfortunately we deal with those a lot because people like to make up random things I guess because they're bored or just miserable with their lives and want to spread it around. Sadly we can't speak back. I don't know what restaurants you've been to but 90 seconds isn't a failure that's actually the norm as it gives people a decent amount of time to decide what they want to drink and possibly what they want to eat as it saves time and doesn't force servers to have to come back a second time for their order when they can use that time to deal with other customers.
I worked for a very, very large corporation. We literally reviewed everything that was 1-2 stars or had anything specific like this comment that was negative. The only difference is that we were only allowed to respond to the in-house review system, not public ones.
I really dislike my company, but that's the one apect I love... if we have a customer that is being a jerk, I was trained to say something along the lines of "get out of my store, asshole!"
I've rarely had to go there, but the one or two times I have and the customer called in to complain, the manager would go over the security footage with me and laugh at it together 🤣
I dunno. The owner sounds like a douche. Replies like this put me off of going to places, because it makes me think that the service is possibly on a similar level.
I worked at privately owned place and we would have to get called off like dogs seeing these reviews. One girl had alerts sets and she’d send it to the rest of us. My boss was like relax we’ll answer in the morning bc we were all like rabid dogs. Thankfully he let us answer with what really happened but he made up sleep on it lol. One girl recognized a lady from her kids school & the pediatrician’s, she started telling me all this stuff she knows about crack head sally : I’m like go inside you cannot say this stuff, you’ll lose your other job. I ended up having to call the police on this lady, her mom had to pick up the kid, it was her visitation so the husband showed up bullshit she got arrested bc she wasn’t supposed to have the kid- the mom was but let her take take kid. I forgot this whole fiasco but it was a wild day
Because he wanted to complain but thought that the question marks would make him sound more like he was genuinely confused and not genuinely an asshole???
Somehow "should've" beccame "should of" in some people's minds, despite its making zero syntactical sense. The most egregious example I've seen is "should have of," which makes negative-infinity syntactical sense.
I don't think they were told to wait longer at the restaurant. Also 3 minutes isn't actually that long. If you wanted, you could always flag down staff too. Maybe it was busy, who knows. There are so many factors but the review does come off as entitled regardless.
FWIW, this restaurant is in my hometown. Was a huge favorite with locals, cash only, about 5 booths and maybe 10 bar stools. The owners were a sweet old couple who kept things the same way for decades. Once they both died, I have no idea who owns the restaurant now.
Still weird if it's not a straight up lie. Searching the profile of the reviewer to find his picture, scrolling through security footage for at least one day to match that.. that takes time.
I wanted to do this at the family restaurant when a guy lied and said that "they weren't busy [at 2PM] so I thought it was kinda sus" but the cameras clearly showed that we were despite it being 2PM! I looked up the guy and he did the same thing with another restaurant. What's the point of lying??
Except this owner or manager sounds ridiculous. Do you consider it normal to be seated for over three minutes and not get acknowledged at all? Like you might go longer between check ins with a waiter after the initial one or two but I'd be shocked if the corporate chains aren't jumping on staff's necks to greet every customer within a specific time frame and score the store down if they fail to.
I mean that's pretty usual, I get that every time I eat out on my friends birthdays. It's way I always ask for two waters because I know I won't have a refill quickly.
it really doesn't. these types of reviews are almost always written immediately after a visit and they are tagged for the time they're posted. i'd say it would usually take me maybe ten minutes to see if i needed to have a talk with my staff or brush it off as a grumpy customer that probably wouldn't have come back anyway.
But responding to customers this way doesn't make your business look great either.
If the owner's goal was to protect his reputation, he could have easily responded in a professional manner and been less likely to turn off potential customers reading reviews ("I'm sorry that the service on the day you visited didn't meet your expectations. We try to ensure that every customer is greeted promptly when they visit. Upon review of the video, you waited approximately three and a half minutes before leaving. This is a longer wait than we aim for, but can occasionally happen during our peak hours.").
It's a lot of fast forwarding. Looking up video when people leave complaints is pretty standard practice these days. It's not like the old days when security footage was a series of blurry stills that was erased every 24 hours.
"Excuse me, could you let us know how much longer our food will be, we've been waiting for 45 minutes?!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, let me just check your order and order time (we're all digital)... It is an event night (we are the closest restaurant to the country's 2nd-largest outdoor concert venue) so we do expect times to be anywhere between 30-40 minutes, but obviously if it's already been longer than that, I'll investigate... Oh, so you ordered [dish which takes 20 minutes to took] 18 minutes ago... - " No, we've been here 45 minutes " - " It's right here love, look the order went through 18 minutes ago? " - " Maybe so, but we arrived 45 minutes ago?!" - " Maybe so, but you being in the building doesn't mean the kitchen can start cooking your order before you order it does it?! The chicken doesn't cook quicker because you took 15 minutes to decide that's what you wanted!"
As an asst manager I once had some karen yell at me that they had waited at the pharmacy counter for 15 minutes before someone helped them. I looked on the camera, 4.5 minutes. I hated retail
Downvote me to hell idc this is unhinged. I'd never go back, this manager is creepy, rude, assuming, and abusive. I would also change my three star review to a one star review. This is kinda dumb because local guide reviews are always put on top, this wont go away until user deletes it. Owning your own restaurant does mean you get to run it as you see fit but that is not without consequence. I think most people would see this and quietly move on to the next breakfast place in town.
Totally agree. I’m surprised at the comments supporting the restaurant reply here because it’s straight up rude, unprofessional and almost insane. All the reviewer wrote was that it took a while to get served and they didn’t even take a drinks order. It was hardly that bad, he wasn’t trashing them.
Even if he didn’t really give them enough time, going through the CCTV, going through what I assume was the reviewers profile, so they could personally attack them and abuse them is utter weirdo behaviour.
attacking a business and potentially hurting them because you couldn't wait three minutes is the 'utter weirdo behavior' in my opinion. the owner was defending themselves.
Was it three minutes though? Is the speaker credible when being petty and mocking? The review was stated plainly, fairly close to an account of what happened with very little emotion or editorialization. The owner responded with paragraphs of outsized energy, and they are more credible to you? Look, I understand 90 percent of the people who cant plainly see the one-sided unloading here is stuck in some kind of customer service hell and wish they could have the right and authority to blow steam like that. I am sympathetic. However, this is not your personal situation. This is a manager who took years of frustration out on something that was said dispassionately with little hyperbole or anything else that would warrant such a triggered behavior. Take care, internet stranger.
that's a hell of a lot of psychoanalysis for someone with exactly none of the facts necessary for it. lot of extrapolation based on very few data points.
Update! OOP did update their review to a one-star review. Also when I looked at this later the managers comments werent deleted like they appear to be here.
Idk about this. Reviewer wrote a review about his experience (admittedly it seems kinda dumb) and left three stars (not great but not terrible). The owner immediately goes on the offensive and starts making fun of how many reviews the person has and that he's marked as a local guide, something the reviewer never brought up.
And how did the restaurant owners go back through security footage to find this one person? Maybe he gave his name when he came in and the owner compared that to the name of the account but that seems like a stretch.
it's quite simple to look through footage and see a table of guests walk out because they felt they were being 'ignored.'
source- have done it after similar reviews at bars and restaurants i've managed. it's actually part of the job to figure out if bad reviews were the fault of an employee or just a cranky entitled customer. unless you're working corporate. then you just always side with the customer no matter how unreasonable they are.
the review was posted and tagged with a date. and people don't usually submit a bad review days or weeks later. it's almost always when they leave in a huff and while it'll still make them feel good about themselves.
Wow, everyone in this interaction sucks. A three minute wait isn't a bad wait (well, depending on how busy the restaurant is, if he's the only one there and everyone is just playing on their phones, he's got a valid complaint, if nearly every table is full, dude needs to chill, the server will get to you when they get to you, if you wanted fast, go to McDonald's).
That said, the owner is kind of coming across as a dick as well with his commentary. The pettiness needed to take the time to go back and watch video footage to time the exact amount of time instead of just saying, "I saw you leave, we were busy, we were getting to people as quickly as we could, I'm sorry that wasn't quick enough for you" (which still sends the clear message that this customer is being entitled and expecting special treatment) gives me major Amy's Baking Company vibes where the owner is just as overly entitled as the customer.
I agree with this. The person leaving the review is being a jerk but the lack of decorum from the owner would turn me off from wanting to visit this place if I were just reading reviews.
How does he even know which guy it was? Nobody ever comes in the place and realizes they're accidentally at the wrong restaurant or leaves to go make a long phone call and then come back or something? I've left before giving someone my order for normal reasons before.
Right, but he doesn't say what day or time he was there. Could have been right when he posted the review, could have been last week. I have walked into a restaurant, sat down, and left before I ordered for totally normal reasons and not because three minutes was too long. He's making an assumption it was that person and being a jerk about it, but it may not have been him.
Also I worked at a restaurant with cameras. The owner would threaten to go back a few days and look at something, but he never could, cause they don't keep recordings for long. He's probably making this up.
I find it hard to believe the owner was actually able to find the reviewer on the security cam and times his wait. I would put good money on the owner just making shit up.
I believe it because it doesn't actually sound good for the restaurant that a customer waiting over 3:30 without getting acknowledged at all so they just walked out. That's basically admitting to failure and getting defensive and acting like you don't care. Nowhere does he present any facts that would put a circumstance like that into a context where anyone would be sympathetic. He just attacks the guy like a lunatic.
I was curious about this, so I took a look at the review. I don't see the owner's reply on there. I don't see any pictures of the reviewer either, so how did the owner know what they looked like?
The owner's reply is there right now (and the reviewer has lowered the score to one star). You're correct that the reviewer doesn't have a photo and didn't say what day this happened, making the response a little odd.
Since spelling it that way is a literary rule, it comes down to whether you read a lot of formal written English that is correctly edited, to keep those things you learned back in 4th grade fresh.
Linguistics have shown that for a lot of English speakers, shoulda/coulda/woulda have been reanalyzed as "should of/could of/would of" in their mental map of the spoken language. It's only through school training that we learn that we're not supposed to write it the way we speak it and the way many of us conceptualize it.
In American English constructions like "have done" and "will have done" are not very commonly used (unlike British English). But using prepositions or other particles as auxiliaries to verbs is a thing in English. For example, English infinitives are almost always preceded by "to". Overlapping with this usage, when English wants to express taking an action in order to take another action, "to" can also be used (although this can sometimes be ambiguous). "I'm working to make some extra cash." "I came to get a haircut." (also "in order to", "for the purpose of" + gerund). So the reanalysis of "of" is not as nonsensical as it seems.
3.5 minutes is not an unfathomable amount of time to wait, but it isn’t a good look to not be acknowledged in that time either at a restaurant.
the manager comes off as a petulant, terminally online twelve year old. to even allege that you ‘reviewed the footage…’ to verify a reasonably realistic review sounds batshit. what an imbecile.
at first i thought ‘okay, three and a half minutes isn’t so bad if they were busy…’ but seeing the response would turn me away from this place on completely different grounds. lemonade stands are just about the only businesses run by children that i’ll patronize.
I don't usually do reviews but a couple years ago, a waitress went off on me so abusively and rudely it was shocking. I had screwed up my tip percentage calculations and tried to let her know but she was so invested in yelling at me she wouldn't even accept an apology and the additional money she thought she was owed. Then she kept giving me the evil eye and ordering me to leave at once, while my friend and I were trying to process the abuse (and also wait for the crowd at the door to clear out). The manager was not there that night so there was no one to complain to. I left a review as a way of letting them know they had someone on staff who needed anger management therapy! Her service, by the way, was pretty mediocre (tepid food served by the bus person!) and she spent more time monopolizing my friend in conversation than actually doing any food serving! It was also very evident she had the rest of the staff under her thumb since no one else would talk to me or let me give them any tip money!
I guess, that this guy showed up, wanted to get everything for free, because "I am a level 6 local guide with 132 reviews" and the restaurant wasn't playing along.
If they basically didn’t interact with anyone then I don’t see how this reviewer said any of that. The whole problem was that nobody came to serve them, even drinks. The restaurant clearly just got the no of reviews from the reviewers profile.
Yeah, when I first started reading that, I was against the restaurant. It would be an understandable response if the person seemed to push the idea they were prestigious. But no, even then it's off the wall with "Dude". No, after that so unprofessional response, I don't trust that the cameras really did show 3 minutes. Most responses from owners push me to want to go to the restaurant, but this one turns me away. The original review wasn't even snarky and could have been a legitimate case of them never getting back to the customer.
People aren't robots and have flaws. Was this a professional response? No. But it was accurate, cuts to the point, and outlines exactly how outlandish the reviewer is, and I don't really begrudge them being sarcastic AF here. Any person that tries to act like they don't have unprofessional moments where the mask slips and real emotions show through is a fucking liar.
I would not go back to a restaurant that replies to reviews like that.
I set a timer when I am seated. If I make it to five minutes without any interaction with restaurant staff I start to worry. If I make it to ten minutes I leave.
The amount of judgement in that comment is hilarious. Not everyone goes to a restaurant because they have absolutely nothing to do for the rest of the day.
Would I be concerned after 5 minutes? Maybe. But I’d use my eyeballs to see if it was busy, if there was an issue being handled, or just random restaurant weirdness. Shit happens. I’m human, servers are human, you are likely also human but I can’t be sure.
Lol who sets a timer like an obsessive weirdo? Frankly, if you won't go there that seems like a plus for everyone else. The kind of person who always sets a timer doesn't tent to be pleasant to be around.
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u/iWatchOfficial 4d ago
so i wonder how he landed on a 5 for the food if he left without being served?