The sad part is that all the press they’re brand is getting over this, it will polarize people to one of two camps: 1) those that will be completely disgusted and vow to never eat there and those same people will forget/forgive over time and wind up eating there anyway, and 2) those which all they will see is the brand over and over and over again and wonder what the fuss is about over their food and try them anyway. Either way, they don’t lose and the adage is true: there is no such thing as bad press.

Does the owner of this place have any managerial/ownership experience? Do they realize they are in a service-based industry, i.e. your business lives and dies by how customers ultimately view your business?
That response was immature and rude at best. What’s even worse, however, is the fact that they are defending their immature response by complaining their operation is in “infancy” (just like their maturity, evidently). It’s pretty crazy to me that someone would get that upset by a 3-star Yelp review. Get over it. When you own a public business you subject yourself to criticism. That’s how this works.
Unfortunatley John Fox is right: no press is bad press. This establishment and the person who owns this may profit off of this little stunt.
Never ceases to amaze me the people that apparently function in our society. What ever happened to civility…

Sounds like it’s time to leave a review of my MEH expereince there.

Was the tweet in poor taste? Yes. That can’t be denied. But how about looking at Yelp from a small business point of view. You bust your ass to create your dream. You pour your sweat, blood, tears and lets not forget all your money into this business. Then one person comes in. Eats your food and writes a review based on their own personal food preferences. Now restaurants don’t ask to be a part of Yelp. They have no choice in the matter. So every Tom, Dick and Harry is now in direct control of your business. Sending people away simply because they prefer their pulled pork a bit spicier or what have you. I understand that’s the nature of the beast, but it’s bullshit. You can’t take someones “constructive criticism” and use it to “improve” someones personal food preference!
I’m not defending that tweet. And i agree that a new business owner (which he is not, he has another very successful restaurant) should be doing everything in their power to build a customer base. I am, however, defending a chef’s right to be pissed off when people who don’t know what they are talking about run their mouths.

With that said, writing a blog about some Internet gossip is what the Internet is for these days. But encouraging readers to spread gossip like wildfire and try to single handily bring down a small business? Now THAT is in poor taste. Have your opinions. Tell people about them on a meaningless blog. But don’t be an Internet bully. Then you become part of the problem, not the solution.

Holy moley!
I’ve heard of venting but wow!
When one works with the public one has to know that they can’t please everyone all of the time. Negatives will happen, people will complain, as is life. The tweeter needs to get her own twitter account so that she can tweet and vent all she wants without hurting her brand.
-r

Small business owners who actually care what their customers think & feel use Yelp and other review sites as opportunities to learn and grow. I like to say this on the several social media client accounts I manage: “If you had a good experience, please tell your friends. If we can make your experience better, please tell us!” The internet has allowed a dialogue to grow between businesses and customers. The most successful exchanges occur when a business sees an average, mediocre, or negative rating as a chance to reach out to that customer and make their experience better. Punishing a customer for speaking their mind is not only an opportunity lost, but virtual suicide in such a tightly-knit community as ours.

I want to start by being clear that tweet was childish and petty and it wouldn’t be cool to do something like that about someone who bumped into you on the bus Doing so would certainly never be good for business so I haven’t but, contrary to what a lot of people think the customer isn’t always right

Having worked in the restaurant biz for a long time I can say, unequivocally, Yelp is the worst. Terrible. Sometimes a repeat customer is such a repeated problem and has such entitlement issues that they cost you a lot of money and it’s easier to just give them what they want (for the last time) then explain, as delicately as possible, that your restaurant is probably not for them. There are some diligent Yelpers worth their salt but most people on there think they’re the next Anthony Bourdain but wouldn’t even know how to set a table much less how to sit at one. When something is going wrong at a table you usually know it before the diner does. . You might think we’re too busy but we remember you. It’s our job. We remember where you sat, what you ordered, if there were any problems and how well you tipped. When you get a bad Yelp review, 99% of the time you can sit down with your staff and figure out who it was and what happened and reach out to that customer. The problem is that half the time it’s the customer expecting something they didn’t ask for or something that we don’t offer. All we can do is apologize for the confusion but you’re not getting free food because you’re so busy live blogging at your table that you didn’t bother to read the menu.

Half the people Yelping about my restaurant (and we have a good rating) are clearly confusing it with some other place they’ve eaten – going so far as to get the cuisine wrong, the location and decor wrong and even complaining about or praising servers who don’t work for us. One particularly bad review of our restaurant placed me and of our servers (never on the floor on the same nights) at a different restaurant that serves similar cuisine. We discussed it at the restaurant and after deciding that it couldn’t possibly have happened in our dining room, we had Yelp remove it.

Yelp ratings are clearly predictable. Expect lots of 4 and 5 star ratings when a place first opens because it’s new and “different” then, when people get bored with it, watch the rating go down a few points. It has very little to do with the quality of food, service or execution. How soon or how often you see a restaurant appear when you do a search has more to do with how much that restaurant is paying Yelp than it’s actual Yelp rating – which can also be massaged. It’s just another marketing vehicle, like Open Table or Grubhub that is just looking to get its hand in the pocket of every restaurant owner. People have no clue how slim profit margins in this biz are and if they knew that Yelp, Open Table, Grubhub, etc were dipping into our pockets for 5, 10 even 15% they might chill out a little.

Diners might think these tools are convenient but all they do is make people lazy, impatient, entitled all the while driving up the cost of your food.

“wildfire?” Really, if you kept this story as a piece on bad management in opening up a restaurant, fine. No, you go out of your way to try and bring down a small business for one mistake, try to ruin a small business in a neighborhood that wants this business in it. Frankly, many people are sick of Yelp and bloggers and tweets, if you want to tell them you didn’t like their food, tell them it to their face. Not with your Yelp from the comfort of your couch, thinking your doing the world a service. You are irresponsible with comments like that and your friends on FB are as well. Now this has turned into a “racist” comments according to Susan Graeser??? Where is the racism? If you’re reading racism into that tweet, that’s your own beliefs, don’t imply the intentions of what Blue Belly was saying. Frankly, I think they hate Yelp too and was pissed and overreacted. That is it. So quit your Hipster whining, open up a PBR, slam it, look in the mirror, and realize that people make mistakes, including yourself by attempting to create a “wildfire.”